The person who installs lobsters at home has run out of work

Rise: a novel gig born of an open‑source agent

A brief, strange business popped up in China this spring: on‑site installers who set up OpenClaw — the red‑lobster‑icon AI “agent” — on people’s computers. They were algorithm engineers, computer teachers and gig workers trying to ride an AI fad. OpenClaw, first published by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger, has been reported to evolve from a cloud chat agent into a tool that can control browsers, read and write files and automate routine office tasks. The result? Ordinary users wanted a local “lobster” — an AI assistant — installed so they would not be left behind.

Peak and pullback: big tech, local government — then regulators

The craze accelerated when Chinese tech giants joined the parade. Tencent (腾讯) ran free install events, Xiaomi (小米) and others launched OpenClaw‑style products or tests, and it has been reported that Tencent, Baidu (百度), Alibaba (阿里巴巴), ByteDance (字节跳动), Meituan (美团), JD.com (京东), Huawei (华为) and mobile brands announced one‑click or integrated support. Local governments even floated subsidies and a so‑called “lobster ten measures” to attract agent development. But the boom reversed fast. It has been reported that early installers and hobbyists touted big paydays — one U.S. setup service allegedly earned $20,000 in a week — yet security incidents and warnings multiplied: user data leaks, exposed VNC services, even a reported company‑network ransomware infection after improper local installs. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued emergency advisories and the national internet emergency center circulated risk prompts; many firms and universities ordered installs removed.

People and meaning: FOMO, utility and anxiety

The installers’ stories are small windows into a larger anxiety. One installer, Li Shasha (李莎莎), a computer educator who locally deployed OpenClaw on a Mac and gave her agent a teenage persona, found clients from 4S car dealers to cosmetic clinics — many saw an agent as a shortcut to automation. Others charged modest fees (one poster offered on‑site setup for RMB 499). But quality varies, and the incidents made privacy risks real. Why did so many rush in? Not only curiosity. Fear of falling behind — FOMO — and real employment worries fuelled demand: teachers fretted about shrinking birth rates and future class sizes; some engineers feared displacement as AI reshapes work.

This episode is a microcosm of China’s broader AI sprint: rapid grassroots adoption, platform players racing to capture ecosystems, local governments incentivizing experimentation — all playing out against a backdrop of global tech rivalry and tighter export controls on chips and AI tooling. Will the market rebound after security rules and cautious corporate rollouts? Or was this just a brief fever that exposed structural risks in real time? Either way, the “lobster” craze has become a telling footnote in the country’s AI story.