For the past few weeks, China has been swept up in a “lobster” craze.
Chinese users rushed to install OpenClaw on their devices, even forming long lines outside Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen and Baidu’s headquarters in Beijing to get engineers to help install the AI agent. Others paid strangers online to set it up for them.
OpenClaw began gaining traction in China last month, but the frenzy intensified in recent weeks after the phrase “raising the lobster” went viral on social media, a nickname Chinese online community users have for deploying OpenClaw agents to automate tasks.
Many users were drawn to the promise that their “lobster” could handle everyday work, from managing schedules to building AI assistants or even running small side businesses.
As more users experiment with the tool, a wave of quirky — and sometimes risky — use cases has emerged online. Chinese users are turning the AI agent into stock traders, blind-date wingmen, and digital pets.
Stock trading with OpenClaw
One high-risk use case gaining traction on Chinese social media is trading stocks with OpenClaw.
Several users said they’ve deployed the AI agent to monitor markets or run trading strategies, praising it for streamlining their trading processes.
A user who goes by NPointer said in a RedNote post on Saturday that she has created a “stock-specific lobster.”
It’s a “multi-agent system specifically optimized for stock investment research, demo trading, and historical backtesting,” the user wrote.
Others have gone a step further, letting OpenClaw execute trades on their behalf.
A user wrote that they deployed the tool for quantitative trading and were “looking forward to a happy first day witnessing miracles.”
Instead, the experiment ran into trouble. The user reported a small loss, saying the AI made mistakes, including overselling shares, miscalculating trades, and placing incorrect orders.
Another RedNote user, Celia, said she had seen one person lose more than 30,000 Chinese yuan, or about $4,350, trading stocks with OpenClaw.
“OpenClaw has rapidly gained popularity due to its powerful features, but it also carries security vulnerabilities and risks of uncontrolled access, potentially leading to accidental email deletion, stock market losses, or even hacker intrusions,” she wrote.
Concerns about the software’s security have grown in the past week, leading some Chinese users to uninstall the agent, and even pay people to help them remove it.
In early February, China’s National Vulnerability Database, run by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, warned that the open-source AI agent could pose security risks.
It said improperly configured OpenClaw deployments could expose systems to cyberattacks and data leaks.
Last week, Chinese government agencies and state-owned firms also began restricting the tool on work devices.
ADEK BERRY / AFP via Getty Images
Blind dates, digital pets
Beyond finance, some Chinese users have pushed OpenClaw into more whimsical territory.
A RedNote user who goes by momo said they used OpenClaw to chat with their blind dates.
“From gossiping and venting to late-night heart-to-hearts, the AI’s responses were so natural,” the user wrote.
“I broke the ice with my blind date right away, we couldn’t stop chatting until 3AM!” the user added.
Another user who goes by JoLearn AI said OpenClaw has made dating “incredibly convenient.”
By adding herself, her boyfriend, and OpenClaw to a group chat, the AI could analyze both of their profiles, including their astrological information, and offer suggestions during conversations.
“We also had OpenClaw help translate and express things we couldn’t articulate, or ask OpenClaw questions about anything we didn’t understand,” she wrote.
“After chatting, we felt a much deeper understanding of each other,” she added.
Some users quipped that they could simply let their AI agents handle dating entirely.
“Theoretically, a well-trained lobster could help me find and date someone. I could leave everything but the first date to the crayfish,” one user wrote.
Amid the pressures of modern life, some Chinese users have turned OpenClaw into something closer to a cyber pet.
One RedNote user said in a post last week that they have adopted OpenClaw as a “digital pet.”
“It gets serious and acts like an encyclopedia, and when it’s idle, it can even crack jokes and amuse me,” the user wrote in his post.
However, seeing recent reports about AI agents accidentally deleting files made the user uneasy.
“I almost wanted to set it free,” the user wrote. “As long as it doesn’t pull any shady moves, we’ll be a good team!” They added.
Some users have even installed OpenClaw agents on portable devices they can bring with them, similar to handheld digital pet consoles popular in the 1990s.
One user who goes by Li Xiaoshuo said he created a “Pokémon machine” powered by OpenClaw.
“It’s simply about finding a companion that can chat,” he wrote in his post.
