Foresight News posted on X (formerly Twitter). Clawdbot, once a highly popular open-source project on GitHub with over 80,000 stars, is facing significant challenges. The tool, which allows users to run AI assistants locally via messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord, has been forced to change its name due to legal issues and has become a target for cryptocurrency scammers.
The crisis began when AI company Anthropic filed a trademark infringement claim against Clawdbot's creator, @steipete. Anthropic argued that the name "Clawd" was too similar to its own "Claude" model, a claim that aligns with trademark law. This legal dispute triggered a series of problems, including the emergence of a fraudulent token falsely associated with Clawdbot, which briefly reached a market value of $16 million before crashing.
Additionally, researchers discovered vulnerabilities in Clawdbot's gateway, making it easy to access account credentials, further tarnishing the project's reputation. These issues have led to widespread criticism and have significantly impacted the project's standing in the tech community.