Ben Guez “has a lot of potential foreign wives [his] DMs,” thanks to an automated script he set up using OpenClaw, Claude’s code, and Instagram test reels.
“I think it’s crazy, like the energy is crazy right now,” Guez, a content creator and startup founder, told TechCrunch. “I’m not sure if everyone is going to think it’s good, but I mean, it works.”
How does Guez attract so many women? First, it uses openClaw’s open source AI to track the results of World Cup matches. After each match, OpenClaw prompts Claude to create and post an almost identical Instagram “trial reel” with the same template. In the video, Guez stares out the window of a train car looking dejected, with the caption: “I can’t believe {COUNTRY} is missing… If any {COUNTRY} girls need emotional support… my DMs are open.”
Guez made the same post, save the name of the country, more than a dozen times. But you can’t tell if you look at his profile, since the test tests don’t appear on the creator’s official page. Since launching this automation, Guez has received over 1 million views and 200 DMs in a few days. That volume is even more impressive when you consider that Guez says in his profile that he will only respond to DMs sent through Canary, his AI language learning program, which means these women have to download his app.
You have to give it to him: Guez actually takes “work smart, not hard” to the next level. But if these women have realized that he does not really care about Tunisian football, won’t they feel they are being played?
“They don’t feel angry, they’re more impressed, like, ‘Oh, you’re thinking outside the box, you’re an honest person,'” Guez said. “I think as long as you are open [about] what you’re doing, I think it’s right.”
TechCrunch couldn’t independently verify the actual reactions of these women, so we’ll have to take Guez’s word for it. But we can tell you that Guez isn’t the only guy making art with an AI viral assistant. Although Guez’s methods are highly offensive, some people see OpenClaw as a way to streamline the date-setting process.
Jeff Weisbein, founder of a tech PR firm, uses OpenClaw to help him figure out where to take dates in different locations in South Florida.
“I meet women in different parts of South Florida, so I don’t know all the restaurants or things to do,” Weisbein told TechCrunch. “I just have my bot to do all the research and create a document with links to why it’s a decision for any type of day.”
When I fill him in on Guez’s OpenClaw scheme, he bursts into laughter.
“I guess I’m not using OpenClaw fully,” he said. “But actually instead of using OpenClaw to help with work that I would have had to do manually.”
Like Guez, Weisbein doesn’t hide the fact that she uses AI tools to help plan dates (though, it backfired when one woman told her, “I hate AI agents”). In some ways, asking OpenClaw where to go for happy hour in Fort Lauderdale isn’t all that different from Googling cool neighborhood spots, but he says he’ll draw the line at using AI to mediate his real-life conversations with women.
“I’ve seen people make bots and swipe methods using OpenClaw, and I haven’t done that. They say it’s a numbers game, but if that’s what it takes… that seems like a really bad way to do it,” he said. “I feel like you shouldn’t transfer your communication when you’re in a relationship with someone to an AI.”
People seem hesitant to let AI interfere once there’s real communication, but a tech worker named Cailey said that once she decides to end the flirting, she doesn’t mind using Claude to break things up.
“I started using Claude and automated ‘I don’t want to see you anymore’ messages based on a few key words that I would put in about the day. It would automatically send them to me at random times so I wouldn’t have to worry about when to send them,” he told TechCrunch. “It worked so well, I even talked to my boyfriend, who I had to send an automated message to, and he asked if he was talking to Claude or Cailey.”
What’s worse: getting angry, or breaking up with AI?
OpenClaw shook the tech world with its power when it first went viral in the spring, but security advocates have consistently warned users about the dangers of giving an AI assistant sole control over all of your accounts.
For Lazer Cohen, founder of OpenClaw security-focused NanoClaw, there are deep privacy implications of outsourcing personal relationships with AI, even if his company advertises date planning as something that could be used in X.
“Anytime you give an agent access to personal information and accounts, you need personal authorization,” Cohen told TechCrunch. “We’ve all heard stories of OpenClaw creating dating profiles for people without their knowledge or consent, or OpenClaw dating coaches leaking to other groups that they’re being used as a dating coach.”
NanoClaw has found its way into Cohen’s love life, though he’s using it in a more healthy way than the mass-produced reels he begs die-hard football fans to drop into his DMs.
“My wife and I use our NanoClaw assistant, Rosie, to manage the schedules of our five children,” he said. But ‘claws’ are widely used to help couples reach the child-rearing stage.”
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