Andrei Karpathy, the father of vibecoding, is starting to live in a world without apps.
On a recent episode of “No Priors,” Karpathy described his experiments with the OpenClaw AI agent, which effectively replaced the fragmented software stack he had at home.
From Sonos to lighting to security, instead of juggling multiple apps, we built agents that discover, reverse engineer, and control connected systems through natural language. He calls it “Dobby” after the house elf from Harry Potter.
With minimal prompting, Dobby scanned Karpathy’s local network, identified devices, located undocumented APIs, and began processing commands like playing music and controlling lights.
“In my case, I used to use six different apps just to set up my home automation, and I don’t need to use those apps anymore,” he said. “Dobby controls everything with natural language.”
This work still requires technical skills. However, if you’ve ever tried to adjust anything on your Sonos speaker system, you’ll know that the app is often ridiculously difficult to use. I almost threw my Sonos speaker out the window several times. I’ll be happy if I never have to open the Sonos app again.
The key point is that generative AI and agents pose a threat to app ecosystems and the companies that rely on them.
The interface has evolved from tapping apps on the iPhone screen. Instead, we will be leveraging more of our voices through AI chatbots and agents.
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