'Clawdbot' Is Now 'Moltbot,' but Still Carries the Same Security Concerns
On Monday, I was introduced to "Clawdbot," the latest AI craze taking over tech social media channels. Clawdbot is designed to be an agentic personal assistant. In layman's terms, that means the bot can perform tasks on your behalf: You give it full access to your computer, and it can organize your inbox, code for you, or clear your calendar (allegedly, anyway). You can also talk to it from a chat app of your choice, like WhatsApp or iMessage, rather than it's own interface. Some people are even buying Mac minis exclusively to run Clawdbot from.
If you're wondering where that name came from, it takes after another AI company's product. Creator Peter Steinberger says he was inspired by the monster that appears when users reload Claude Code—Claude being one of the big AI products in the space right now, developed by the company Anthropic. Steinberger decided to go the lobster route with his logo, and named his own lobster mascot "Clawd." From this, Clawdbot was born. The problem: Anthropic also calls Claude Code mascot "Clawd." Whoops.
By Tuesday, Clawdbot was no more (in name, anyway). It turns out companies like Anthropic don't appreciate it when you start your own business and use the name of their mascot as your own—especially when you're working in the same ridiculously lucrative field. Maybe if Clawdbot had never taken off, Anthropic wouldn't have noticed, but the bot became an internet sensation, which no doubt landed it on Anthropic's radar. As such, Clawdbot has officially changed its name to "Moltbot," suggesting a lobster molting from its shell. Clawd is now affectionally known as "Molty." The company made the announcement on its official X page, noting that Anthropic had asked it to change the name over "trademark stuff." (Steinberger struck a different tone on his personal X account, however, writing: "I was forced to rename the account by Anthropic. Wasn't my decision.")
Aside from the name change, the bot appears to be the same as it was on Monday. That is to say, it's still open source, still available to run locally on your own device, and still comes with the same inherent security risks I outlined yesterday. I still wouldn't recommend you install a program like Moltbot on your personal device, since, name change or not, you'd still be giving it incredible access to your hardware and its data with little knowledge of the safeguards in place to protect it. All it could take is one malicious prompt injection for Moltbot to molt your security.