Behind the lobster merch, China’s latest tech obsession could be a game changer | CNN Business

At China’s hot new tech events, lobsters are everywhere –– lobster balloons, lobster headbands, lobster plushies in claw machines, even live lobsters in an inflatable kiddie pool. But the attendees swarming the meet-ups are not here for the crustaceans –– they’re here for the new technology they represent: OpenClaw, an autonomous artificial intelligence tool, which can be programmed to run tasks nonstop with full control of the user’s device. Rather than a simple question-and-answer format like most AI chatbots, OpenClaw uses the same underlying technology to independently operate apps, web browsers or smart home appliances based on commands via commonly used messaging apps like WhatsApp. Created by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger and released in November, the free AI agent has been hailed as a new way to supercharge productivity. Jensen Huang, CEO of the US chip giant Nvidia, has called it “the next ChatGPT” and “the most popular open-source project in the history of humanity.” In China, OpenClaw has received a particularly fervent welcome among AI enthusiasts and novices alike. According to analysis of global public networks by SecurityScorecard, a New