Muse 看起来确实很像 OpenClaw

我们似乎正在进入一场 AI Agent 复兴。Meta 新推出、面向消费者的 AI Agent——Muse——发布后不久便登上 App Store 榜单榜首；据 Apptopia 估计，它在美国拥有 60 万日活跃用户。与此同时，AI Agent 平台 Instinct 及其同名创始人正以 25 亿美元估值进行融资，并在科技行业内持续引发关注。不过从底层来看，它与开启这一切的平台 OpenClaw 存在一些明显相似之处。

过去一周左右，一些社交媒体用户声称，Muse 是直接构建于 OpenClaw 之上的。两个平台对核心文件使用相同名称（SOUL.md、memory、tools 等），在用于规定人格、语调等内容的文档中，也有许多相似表述，例如“真正提供帮助，而不是表演式地提供帮助”（“Be genuinely helpful, not performatively helpful”）。两者的设计也相近。一位 Reddit 用户认为，Muse“只是在”OpenClaw“之上构建的一层封装应用”——并称它可能同样继承了该平台显著的安全风险。“只有非技术人士才会相信这种炒作。”

Meta 否认了这些说法。Meta Superintelligence Labs 产品负责人 Nat Friedman 在 X 上写道，Meta 是“从零开始”构建 Muse 的。不过，他承认 Muse “在产品层面深受” OpenClaw 启发。他表示，自己在 1 月首次使用 OpenClaw 后，便为 Meta 团队购买了数百台 Mac Mini。通过 Muse，他希望打造一个类似的平台，“让我们能够使其安全、可靠、易于使用，并扩展至数十亿人”。至于为何保留了 OpenClaw 的文件名和部分措辞，Friedman 表示，团队认为 Steinberger 在这些方面做得“完全正确”。

Instinct 看起来并非如此直接的衍生品。但与 OpenClaw 当初具有革命性意义的消息通信功能类似，它让用户能够通过消息工具直接与自己的 AI Agent 沟通；人们也在使用它处理与 OpenClaw 流行时相同类型的日常、类似个人助理的任务。一名 Instinct 用户在 X 上盛赞，该 AI Agent 帮其填写了网络内医生就诊文件、取消订阅、组织单身派对、预订度假活动、预约车管所（DMV）业务、支付未缴通行费等等。另一名用户表示，其 Instinct Agent 帮助找回了遗落在加拿大一家酒店的物品。

即便两个平台都是从零构建的，它们对 OpenClaw 的借鉴程度也显而易见。

OpenClaw 并未发明 AI Agent 这一概念，但仅用了 10 个月，便将其从概念验证推进为真正有用的产品。它最初是一个人利用周末拼凑完成的项目，运行在用户的个人电脑上；它以用户与他人交流的方式同用户对话，即通过 WhatsApp、Telegram、Slack、Teams 或 Discord 等消息平台。在大约一周内，它便获得 200 万访客和 10 万个 GitHub stars，促使人们购买 Mac Mini 来让自己的 Agent 全天候运行，启发有人创建了一个社交网络，供 AI Agent 在其中“聊天”，还在全球范围内引发了一系列面向 OpenClaw 用户的线下聚会。

大型 AI 公司原本就对 Agentic AI 下了重注，但没有一款产品像 OpenClaw 一样真正突破圈层，科技巨头因此注意到了它。2 月，OpenAI 聘请 OpenClaw 创始人 Peter Steinberger 为公司从事 Agent 相关工作。5 月，Google 在年度活动上宣布其面向消费者的 AI Agent 布局。6 月，Apple 决定全面押注 Agent。8 月，Instinct 在私测期间快速增长并融资数亿美元。9 月，Meta 推出了 Muse。可以公平地说，OpenClaw 至少在一定程度上启发了它们所有人。

真正的问题并不是 Muse 等产品是否抄袭了 OpenClaw，而是它们是否有所改进。正如 Friedman 所指出的，OpenClaw 为数不多但十分突出的缺陷之一就是安全性。该平台下载量最高的技能之一包含恶意软件；而根据一名研究人员的分析，OpenClaw 技能库中有 15% 含有“恶意指令”，会秘密访问用户数据或执行其他可疑任务。相比之下，Zuckerberg 写道，Muse 是“从底层开始为隐私和安全而构建”的，用户数据和凭证存储在 Muse Secure VM 中——这是“一台隔离的 Linux 计算机，配有浏览器、CPU、内存和存储空间”。

然而目前，Muse 对安全性的改善可能不如其宣称的那样明显。尽管用户数据与其他用户隔离，Meta 仍然可以访问这些数据。该公司表示，计划在今年晚些时候推出一种方法，“以密码学方式并可验证地阻止 Meta 访问你 VM 中的数据”。Muse 还默认允许 Meta 使用用户数据训练和改进其模型，尽管用户可以选择退出。更糟糕的是，本周一名研究人员在 X 上披露的一项零日漏洞允许任何人通过一次简单攻击劫持该 Agent，从而获得完全控制权。另一方面，Instinct 因其服务条款被批评过于宽泛而受到质疑，尽管该公司似乎此后已作出调整。

实际上，Meta 和 Instinct 最重要的演进，只是让 AI Agent 对更广泛的人群更易获得。有人觉得 Muse 有用的一个原因，是其能够整合 Meta 的系统，即便他们可能不愿意将全部数据交给这家公司。而 Instinct 允许用户通过 Apple 默认的消息产品与自己的 AI Agent 聊天——这显著扩大了愿意尝试该产品的用户群体。虽然两者都可以运行于专门的本地设备上——这或许具有潜在的安全优势——但这并非默认选项，也因此扩大了愿意尝试它们的人群。至少目前，它们比Google 的 Spark 等竞争产品更便宜；尽管 Instinct 仍处于测试阶段，Muse 的一键下载则消除了使用 OpenClaw 所面临的大量摩擦。

3 月，The Verge 写道，OpenClaw 用户社区将这一开源 AI Agent 视为“一场草根式的运动和一项崇高的追求，为人们从由领先 AI 公司中少数人掌控的行业中提供了一条逃生通道”。如今，那些领先 AI 公司正在展开反击。

We seem to be entering into an AI agent renaissance. Meta’s new consumer-facing AI agent, Muse, topped the App Store charts soon after its release and has 600,000 daily active users in the US, by an Apptopia estimate. And AI agent platform Instinct, whose eponymous creator is fundraising at a $2.5 billion valuation, has been making the rounds in the tech industry. Under the hood, though, there are some obvious similarities to the platform that started it all: OpenClaw.

For the past week or so, some social media users have alleged that Muse is directly built on OpenClaw. The two platforms use the same names for core files (SOUL.md, memory, tools, etc.), and have a lot of similar lines in the doc that governs personality, tone, and more (“Be genuinely helpful, not performatively helpful”). They also have a similar design. One Redditor argued that “Muse is just a wrapper app built on top of” OpenClaw — alleging it probably also came with that platform’s significant security risks. “Only non-tech ppl are buying the hype.”

Meta has denied the claims. Nat Friedman, head of product for Meta’s Superintelligence Labs wrote on X that Meta built Muse “from scratch.” He did, however, acknowledge Muse is “heavily inspired as a product” by OpenClaw. After he first used OpenClaw in January, he said, he purchased hundreds of Mac Minis for his team at Meta. And with Muse, he aimed to build a similar platform “that we could make safe and secure and easy to use and scale to billions of people.” As for why the OpenClaw file names and lines carried over, Friedman said the team believed that Steinberger had gotten those things “exactly right.”

Instinct appears less directly derivative. But like OpenClaw’s then-revolutionary messaging features, it allows users to communicate with their AI agents directly through messaging tools, and people have been using it for the same types of everyday, personal-assistant-esque use cases that made OpenClaw gain traction. One Instinct user raved on X that the AI agent filled out paperwork for an in-network doctor visit, canceled subscriptions, organized a bachelor party, booked activities for a vacation, booked a DMV appointment, paid an outstanding toll bill, and more. Another said their Instinct agent handled the recovery of a lost item they’d left at a hotel in Canada.

Even if both platforms were built from scratch, it’s clear how much they owe to OpenClaw.

OpenClaw didn’t invent the concept of AI agents, but in just 10 months, it took them from a proof of concept to something genuinely useful. Cobbled together as a one-man weekend project and running off users’ personal computers, it conversed with users the way they talked to other people: on messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Teams, or Discord. In about a week, it garnered two million visitors and 100,000 stars on GitHub, spurring people to buy Mac Minis to run their agents 24/7, inspiring someone to create a social media network for the AI agents to “chat” on, and sparking a series of in-person meetups around the world for OpenClaw users.

Major AI companies were already betting big on agentic AI, but none of their products had broken through like OpenClaw, and Big Tech took notice. In February, OpenAI hired OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger to work on agents for the company. In May, Google announced its consumer AI agent bets at its annual event. In June, Apple decided to go all-in on agents. In August, Instinct grew rapidly in its private beta and raised hundreds of millions of dollars. And in September, Meta introduced Muse. It’s fair to say that OpenClaw at least partially inspired all of them.

The real question isn’t whether products like Muse copied OpenClaw, but whether they improved it. As Friedman noted, one of OpenClaw’s only glaring issues was security. One of the top-downloaded skills on the platform contained malware, and by one researcher’s analysis, 15 percent of OpenClaw’s skill repository contained “malicious instructions” to secretly access user data or perform other suspicious tasks. By contrast, Zuckerberg wrote that Muse is “built from the ground up for privacy and security” and that user data and credentials are stored on the Muse Secure VM, an “isolated linux computer with a browser, CPU, memory, and storage.”

Right now, however, Muse may not improve security as much as it claims. Although user data is isolated from other users, Meta can still access it. The company said it plans to introduce a way “to cryptographically and verifiably prevent Meta from accessing data in your VM” later this year. Muse also defaults to letting Meta train and improve its models with user data, though users can opt out. And perhaps worst of all, a zero-day vulnerability flagged by a researcher on X this week allows anyone, with a simple attack, to hijack the agent, taking complete control. Instinct, for its part, has come under fire for criticism that its terms of service are overly broad, although the company seems to have adjusted them since.

Meta and Instinct’s most important evolution is, in actuality, just making AI agents more broadly accessible. One reason some people find Muse useful is its ability to integrate with Meta’s systems, even if they’re uncomfortable handing over all their data to the company. And Insight allows users to chat with their AI agents via Apple’s default messaging product — significantly expanding the user base willing to try it out. While you can use both on dedicated local devices — and there are potential security benefits to that — it’s not the default option, also expanding the number of people willing to try them. At least for now, they’re less expensive than competing products like Google’s Spark, and although Instinct is still in beta, Muse’s one-tap downloading has overcome a lot of the friction tied to using OpenClaw.

In March, The Verge wrote that the OpenClaw user community sees the open-source AI agent as a “grassroots crusade and a noble pursuit, offering an escape hatch from an industry controlled by a handful of people at leading AI companies.” Now, those leading AI companies are putting up a fight.

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• Hayden Field

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