Show HN: Zuckerman – minimalist personal AI agent that self-edits its own code
(github.com)
> Agents propose and publish capabilities to a shared contribution site, letting others discover, adopt, and evolve them further. A collaborative, living ecosystem of personal AIs.
replyWhile I like this idea in terms of crowd-sourced intelligence, how do you prevent this being abused as an attack vector for prompt injection?
100%. This is why I'm so reluctant to give any access to my OpenClaw. The skills hub is poisoned.
replyGreat point. I wrote it as important note and ill take it into account.
replyDIY agent harnesses are the new "note taking"/"knowledge management"/"productivity tool"
replyDIYWA - do it yourself with agent ;) hopefully zuckerman as the start point
replyI started working on something similar but for family stuff. I stopped before hitting self editing because, well I was a little bit afraid of becoming over reliant on a tool like this or becoming more obsessed with building it than actually solving a real problem in my life. AI is tricky. Sometimes we think we need something when in fact life might be better off simpler.
replyThe code for anyone interested. Wrote it with exe.dev's coding agent which is a wrapper on Claude Opus 4.5
The logo is slightly creepy
replyDoes this do anything to resist prompt injection? It seems to me that structured exchange between an orchestrator and its single-tool-using agents would go a long way. And at the very least introduces a clear point to interrogate the payload.
replyBut I could be wrong. Maybe someone reading knows more about this subject?
This looks interesting, but I'm stuck on step 4 of the web setup: where do I get agents to start with? Shouldn't there be a default one that can help me get other ones?
replyHi, can you please contact me at dd@zuckerman.ai
replySounds cool, but it also sounds like you need to spend big $$ on API calls to make this work.
replyI'm building this in the hope that AI will be cheap one day. For now, I'll add many optimizations
replyHave you tested this with a local model? I'm going to try this with GLM 4.7
replyWhat would be the best model to try something like this on a 5800XT with 8 GB RAM?
replyYes, it certainly makes sense if you have the budget for it.
replyCould you share what it costs to run this? That could convince people to try it out.
I mean, you can just say Hi to it, and it will cost nothing.
It only adds code and features if you ask it to
replyAI is cheap right now.
At some point the AI companies must turn to generate profit
replyAnthropic has stated that their inference process is cash positive. It would be very surprising if this wasn't the case for everyone.
replyIt's certainly an open question whether the providers can recoup the investments being made with growth alone, but it's not out of the question.
Problem is the models need constant training or they become outdated.
That the less expensive part generates profit is nice but doesn’t help if you look at the complete picture.
Hardware also needs replacement
reply|The agent can rewrite its own configuration and code.
replyI am very illiterate when it comes to Llms/AI but Why does nobody write this in Lisp???
Isn't it supposed to be the language primarily created for AI???
> Isn't it supposed to be the language primarily created for AI???
replyIn 1990 maybe
Nah, it’s pretty unrelated to the current wave of AI.
replyIf hot reloading is a goal I would target Erlang or another BEAM language over a Lisp.
replyWhy? Many Lisp systems and Common Lisp in particular have great hot reloading capability, from redefining functions to UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-REDEFINED-CLASS to update the states.
replyTerrible name, kind of a mid idea when you think about it (Self improving AI is literally what everyone's first thought is when building an AI), but still I like it.
replyThanks for the feedback.
Are you going to forget this name though?
replyNo, you are right. Its more memorable. With my accent, I can pronounce it as Suckerman
replyI think it's a genius name and is playful on the meme of a pale Zuckerberg being a robot.
replyNo, in the sense that I wouldn't forget an AI agent called "Epsteinman" or "Prolapseman" either.
replyI don’t know if I will forget it, but it’s enough to keep me away from considering using it
replythere are hardcoded elements in the repo like:
reply/Users/dvirdaniel/Desktop/zuckerman/.cursor/debug.log
thanks
replyI would change the name of the project. Why would I want to run something that keeps remind me of that guy
replyI am surprised that no one did this in a LISP yet.
replySomeone needs to send this to Spike Feresten.
replyi like the idea is possible to run in a docker container?
replycould've made it in PHP ;) to be zuck-like
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replyI will not download or use something which constantly reminds me of this weird dude suckerberg who did a lot of damage to society with facebook
replyOk, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
replyThis Zuckerman[0] would like a word
replyThat's really good to know
replyHaha it's your personal agent, let him handle the stuff you don't like.
But soon, right now its not fully ready
replyZuckerberg.
replyAt first I thought it was a naming coincidence, but looking at the zuckerman avatar and the author avatar, I'm unsure if it was intentional:
https://github.com/zuckermanai
https://github.com/dvir-daniel
https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/258404280?s=200&v=4
The transparency glitch in GitHub makes the avatar look either robot or human depending on whether the background is white or black. I don't know if that's intentional, but it's amazing.
I was hoping it was a Philip Roth reference but I was disappointed when I opened the page.
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replyAI generated response on a post about AI. Getting tired of this timeline.
replyNot only that, but the OP created that account solely to hype their own product lol. There’s another bot downthread doing the same thing. Minimally it feels like dang should not let new accounts post for 30 days or something without permission.
replyThat might reduce botting for about 30 days, people will just tee up an endless supply of parked ids that will then spin up to post after the lockout expires.
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replyYep. It's very obvious, and lazy.
replyWhy not ban both accounts? Seems like a fine way to keep SNR high to me.
replyif you ban an account, they know to make a new one
replyif you shadowban, they are none the wiser and the effect to SNR is better