As OpenClaw Enthusiasm Grips China, Kids and Retirees Alike Raise 'Lobsters'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Fan Xinquan, a retired electronics worker in Beijing, has recently started raising a "lobster," hoping that the AI agent he has been training can help organize his specialized industry knowledge better than chatbots like DeepSeek. "OpenClaw can actually help you accomplish many practical things," the 60-year-old said at a recent event hosted by AI startup Zhipu to teach people how to use and train the AI agent, which has gone viral in China, with its various local versions earning the "lobster" nickname. In the past month, OpenClaw, which can connect several hardware and software tools and learn from the data produced with much less human intervention than a chatbot, has captured the imaginations of many in China, from retirees looking for side income to AI firms hoping to generate new revenue streams. [...] Huang Rongsheng, chief architect at Baidu's smart device unit Xiaodu, said at an event on Tuesday that parent group chats for his daughter's primary school class have become overwhelmed by OpenClaw discussions. "My daughter came to me and asked: Dad, I see you raising a lobster every day," he said. "Can I have one too?" Bai Yiyun, another attendee at the Zhipu event, said she hopes to use the agent to start a side hustle during her retirement. "If DeepSeek marked a milestone for open-source large language models, then OpenClaw represents a similar turning point for open-source "agents," said Wei Sun, chief AI analyst at Counterpoint Research.