A new set of tools is giving AI superpowers. | Getty Images

Some smart people think we’re witnessing another ChatGPT moment. This time, folks aren’t flipping out over an iPhone app that can write pretty good poems, though. They’re watching thousands of AI agents build software, solve problems, and even talk to each other.

Unlike ChatGPT’s ChatGPT moment, this one is a series of moments that spans platforms. It started last December with the explosive success of Claude Code, a powerful agentic AI tool for developers, followed by Claude Cowork, a streamlined version of that tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive. Then came OpenClaw, formerly known as Moltbot, formerly known as Clawdbot, an open source platform for AI agents. From OpenClaw, we got Moltbook, a social media site where AI agents can post and reply to each other. And somewhere in the middle of this confusing computer soup, OpenAI released a desktop app for its agentic AI platform, Codex.

This new set of tools is giving AI superpowers. And there’s good reason to be excited. Claude Code, for instance, stands to supercharge what programmers can do by enabling them to deploy whole armies of coding agents that can build software quickly and effortlessly. The agents take over the human’s machine, access their accounts, and do whatever’s necessary to accomplish the task. It’s like vibe coding but on an institutional level.

“This is an incredibly exciting time to use computers,” says Chris Callison-Burch, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches a popular class on AI. “That sounds so dumb, but the excitement is there. The fact that you can interact with your computer in this totally new way and the fact that you can build anything, almost anything that you can imagine — it’s incredible.”

He added, “Be cautious, be cautious, be cautious.”

That’s because there is a dark side to this. Letting AI agents take over your computer could have unintended consequences. What if they log into your bank account or share your passwords or just delete all your family photos? And that’s before we get to the idea of AI agents talking to each other and using their internet access to plot some sort of uprising. It........

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