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"lessons learned" (lemmy.ml)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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screenshot of followup to the first tweet, also by @BenjaminDEKR: " Made some adjustments based on lessons learned. Combined: roughly 200-400x cheaper heartbeat operation."

https://xcancel.com/BenjaminDEKR/status/2017660150463582282

via this bluesky post:

screenshot of bluesky post by @rusty.todayintabs.com with text "I’m starting to think the people who are excited about “AI agents” have literally never used a computer in their lives" and screenshots of the above tweets

screenshot of tweet by @BenjaminDEKR with text: OpenClaw is interesting, but will also drain your wallet if you aren't careful. Last night around midnight I loaded my Anthropic API account with $20, then went to bed. When I woke up, my Anthropic balance was $0. Opus was checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night." Doing literally nothing, OpenClaw spent the entire balance. How? The "Heartbeat" cron job, even though literally the only thing I had going was one silly reminder, ("remind me tomorrow to get milk") 1. Sent ~120,000 tokens of context to Opus 4.5 2. Opus read HEARTBEAT .md, thought about reminders 3. Replied "HEARTBEAT_OK" 4. Cost: ~$0.75 per heartbeat (cache writes) The damage: - Overnight = ~25+ heartbeats - 25 × $0.75 = ~$18.75 just from heartbeats alone - Plus regular conversation = ~$20 total The absurdity: Opus was essentially checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night." The problem is: 1. Heartbeat uses Opus (most expensive model) for a trivial check 2. Sends the entire conversation context (~120k tokens) each time 3. Runs every 30 minutes regardless of whether anything needs checking That's $750 a month if this runs, to occasionally remind me stuff? Yeah, no. Not great.
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[–] 205 points 9 months ago (7 children)

If only computers had a much more efficient and reliable way to tell time

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  • [–] 55 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    And if only you could set a reminder on one, even based on this reliable time telling.

    Impossible though, better just load $1000 into my Definitely Not a Scam Ai to remember to buy milk, or whatever.

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    This is your AI speaking, reminding you to buy the jet, just like you asked.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Much obliged! Say, ai that I trust implicitly, do you have a number or wallet I should send money to pay for the jet!?

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago*

    All these comments are missing the goal here was to learn how to use that AI tool, which obviously not using the AI tool would not accomplish.

    Yes the entire thing is idiotic, but it's disingenuous to say he could have used an alarm instead. No, using an alarm would not achieve the goal of learning how the AI tool works by giving it a simple task.

    A much more laughable fact is that the guy couldn't even write his post without an LLM doing it for him.

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