As I opened 𝕏 today, I wasn’t surprised to see that xAI is making a new computer use tool similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT work feature they’ve been boasting about recently. The general direction seems to be going towards AI that can do things, we’ve seen that since Openclaw came out earlier this year.
What we haven’t yet seen done right (in my opinion) is an AI that acts before you ask a question. Breaking the reactive loop where an AI only really exists when you think you need it, we haven’t seen one that exists when you don’t know you need it, that sees all of your life’s context and acts doing the logical next move, properly gated of course.
The IQ Problem #
I’ve never been a big believer in standardized tests or IQ tests, there are just so many types of intelligence that categorizing them in order of priority and then assigning someone a number seems…wrong to me. What I do agree with however, is that some people are smarter than other people, that some decisions just generally make more sense than what others would choose to do.
We will most likely at some point in the not so distant future reach a point where the decision of AI is superior than the decision of a human given the exact same information and context. Some would argue we’re already there for a good amount of the population.
When it’s indisputable that we’ve arrived at a place where your AI can make your decisions about your life better than you, what becomes most important?
Trust, control, context, and data about you.
The easiest problems among these are context and data about you. That’s what I’ve set out to do with Orb - Proactive AI. Make an open-source AI platform that does the job of you so well that you trust it and it makes your decisions better than you could.
Where We Are #
About 2 weeks ago, the IOS mobile app for Orb went live, which is very exciting. I had been working on the app/backend for about 3 months prior to the app launch and had been using it daily for most of that time.
The app can connect to your PC and then control it with Claude Code, Codex, or Grok Build. It scans your inputs and folders every 15 seconds without an LLM call, data is logged internally and then an LLM call is made every 12 hours by default, with Orb being allowed to schedule up to four wake ups per day. Scheduling of notifications sent directly to you, such as schedule conflicts, unattended items, new news you’d need to know, works on a trigger system that Orb controls itself.
Based on things like if you open its notifications, if when you got back on your PC you actually listened, etc., Orb will learn what’s valuable versus what’s pointless to tell you, then it will proactively use whatever scope you allow it.
Feedback? #
I’ve been building largely by myself, it’s got some users but is still definitely a developing niche tool at the time being. I’m wanting to expand and make Orb more accessible to the general public, make it simpler to set up, run, and understand.
If any of the ideas you’ve heard today interest you, I encourage you to tinker around with the backend, it’s open-source, the app is free, and you can make any changes you’d like to the backend and connect to your phone using tailscale. I hope to hear your feedback/suggestions/insults, I’ll be available in the comments! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Links #
- Mobile app:
[Orb - Proactive AI](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/orb-proactive-ai/id6776376035) - Open-source backend:
[Backend](https://github.com/getorb/Orb-Backend)