Meta: Muse’s OpenClaw Likeness Wasn’t a Coincidence
▼ Summary
– Meta’s AI product Muse was heavily inspired by the open-source project OpenClaw, according to Nat Friedman of Meta’s Superintelligence Labs.
– Friedman clarified that while Muse draws significant inspiration from OpenClaw, it was built from scratch rather than being a direct copy.
– Speculation about the similarity arose after users noted identical file names and content, such as the SOUL.md configuration file, between the two agents.
– Friedman acknowledged the similarities, praising OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger for getting key design elements exactly right.
– The situation highlights Meta’s strategy of identifying successful features in other products and scaling them securely for a massive user base.
Speculation among early users of Meta’s Muse suggested that the AI’s impressive performance was not accidental, but rather the result of it being OpenClaw rebranded for a mainstream audience. Meta has now confirmed that these comparisons are grounded in reality, with Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL), acknowledging on X that the product was “definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw.”
Despite this acknowledgment, Friedman clarified that Muse itself was “built from scratch.” This distinction is crucial for understanding Meta’s development process, even as they admit to drawing significant creative fuel from an existing open-source project.
The OpenClaw Connection
Friedman, who previously served as CEO of GitHub before joining Meta alongside Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, explained that the team became enthusiastic about OpenClaw and sought to create a similar experience capable of serving billions of users. The influence of OpenClaw is understandable given its rapid rise in popularity and the fact that OpenAI acquired its creator earlier this year. This move aligns with Meta’s established strategy of identifying successful innovations and integrating their most effective features into its own ecosystem, a tactic famously employed when adopting Snapchat’s stories format.
The controversy gained traction after Ansh Nanda, an AI app co-founder, posted a viral thread claiming that “Muse is LITERALLY OpenClaw for normies.” Nanda shared evidence showing that Muse’s system files mirrored those of OpenClaw. When questioned by the AI agent about these similarities, the system did not dismiss them as random occurrences but instead described the match as intentional.
Users quickly began comparing technical details, noting that Muse contained a SOUL.md file. This plain text configuration file, written in Markdown, dictates an AI agent’s personality, communication style, values, behavioral boundaries, and areas of expertise. Critics pointed out that the file names were identical and that the content within them was nearly indistinguishable from OpenClaw’s original files.
Meta’s Response to the Similarities
Rather than denying the structural similarities, Friedman addressed the issue directly on X. When asked why Muse replicated the exact file names and possessed “nearly identical content” for the SOUL.md file, he attributed the design choices to admiration for OpenClaw’s creator, Peter Steinberger.
“We built Muse from scratch, but it is definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw. After I used OpenClaw in January, I bought hundreds of Mac minis for the MSL team, and lots of us fell in love with using OpenClaw (and other personal agents),” Friedman stated. He further praised Steinberger, saying:
“@steipete [Peter Steinberger] is a genius, and his harness was pioneering from the jump. I think a lot of people were inspired by it. Our goal with Muse was to build something like OpenClaw that we could make safe and secure and easy to use and scale to billions of people,” he wrote.
Market Performance
The debate over Muse’s origins comes as the application achieves significant commercial success. Muse recently reached the No. 1 spot on the U. S. App Store, demonstrating strong consumer adoption. Comparative data suggests that Muse is currently outperforming ChatGPT during its launch phase when analyzed against similar market conditions and platform availability.
When contacted for additional commentary regarding the OpenClaw similarities, a Meta spokesperson deferred to Friedman’s public statement, indicating that the company had no further remarks to add.
(Source: TechCrunch)
