Since the general AI agent Manus was launched last week, it has spread online like wildfire. And not just in China, where it was developed by the Wuhan-based startup Butterfly Eff

Agentic AI represents a major advancement, especially the AI’s ability to design, construct, and execute code.

The existence of Manus makes this cautious approach harder to sustain, however. As the previously wide gap between big AI labs and upstarts narrows, the giants no longer have the luxury of taking their time. And that also means their approach to safety is no longer workable.

The new general AI agent from China had some system crashes and server overload—but it’s highly intuitive and shows real promise for the future of AI helpers.

Unlike ChatGPT, Claude, and other single-model systems, Manus claims to be the "world's first general AI agent" by using multiple AI models working in tandem — such as Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Qwen, and various independent agents to tackle a wide range of tasks.