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Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by sowbug on Saturday February 21, 2026 @03:06PM (#47104157)
Another pattern would mirror BigCorp process: you need VP approval for the privileged operation. If the agent can email or chat with the human (or even a strict, narrow-purpose agent(1) whose job it is to be the approver), then the approver can reply with an answer.

This is basically the same as your pattern, except the trust is in the channel between the agent and the approver, rather than in knowledge of the password. But it's a little more usable if the approver is a human who's out running an errand in the real world.

1. Cf. Driver by qntm.

Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by dingaling on Saturday February 21, 2026 @05:22PM (#47105459)
Until the agent decides that it's more efficient to fake an approval, and carries on...
Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by jofzar on Saturday February 21, 2026 @08:57PM (#47107313)
That's why you literally put it behind authentication?
Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by edwin2 on Saturday February 21, 2026 @10:14PM (#47107753)
I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by safety1st on Saturday February 21, 2026 @09:13PM (#47107418)
In my opinion people are fixating a little too much over the automation part, maybe because most people don't have a lot of experience with delegation... I mean, a VP worth his salt isn't generally having critical emails drafted and sent on his behalf without his review. It happens with unimportant emails, but with the stuff that really impacts the business far less often, unless he has found someone really, really great

Give me a stack of email drafts first thing every morning that I can read, approve and send myself. It takes 30 seconds to actually send the email. The lion's share of the value is figuring out what to write and doing a good job at it. Which the LLMs are facilitating with research and suggestions, but have not been amazing at doing autonomously so far

Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by sowbug on Saturday February 21, 2026 @10:29PM (#47107841)
You might be right, but not for long. Once my agent is interacting directly with your agent (as opposed to doing drafts of your work on your behalf), expectations will shift to 24/7 operation.
Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by ithkuil on Sunday February 22, 2026 @02:56PM (#47114078)
This is uncharted territory and very interesting.. We humans live with a strong requirement of reputation management which shapes the way that we do things.

Once we have agents openly do things on our behalf but not in our voice, it will be interesting to see how of subpar performance or bad etiquette gets accepted just because agents don't have an individual personal reputation to maintain

Re:Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents by sowbug on Sunday February 22, 2026 @07:29PM (#47116473)
There's no rude way to call an API. As more of human communication and commerce gets refactored into cold agentic interactions, the issue of reputation just vanishes.

But there's more than shifting etiquette standards at stake. Every BigCorp is currently reworking their APIs to be agent-friendly. CAPTCHAs and "Contact Sales" forms are being ripped out because they have no place in a world where the customer expects a complete transaction in the next 300 milliseconds. Agentic customers will demand agentic support, or else they'll take their RPCs elsewhere.

So what happens when you're CEO of BigCorp, and 90% of your customers are code, served by code, and the rest are messy humans who forget their passwords, complain that your website layout is confusing, and demand to speak to the manager? Is that last 10% worth keeping? Can you imagine Amazon in 2030 deprecating support for human customers?

Maybe this sounds cool, especially if OpenClaw agents have been doing all your domestic online chores for the past couple years. But along the way social grace was refactored out.

You take a life-saving prescription drug via an off-label usage, and your employer's PBM updates to Care Schema 2.3, which makes it semantically impossible to get a refill. Or you bend down to get the mail on your front porch, the wind slams your front door shut, and your fingerprint no longer works to open the door, because as of noon, your mortgage payment was past due. You could easily pay, but your phone is inside, next to your sleeping infant's crib. The system is operating as designed.

This is how the world would work when it's intended for agentic interactions and humans are an afterthought.