# AI can handle errands, but its camera judgment can fail

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-can-handle-errands-but-its-camera-judgment-can-fail/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Peter Steinberger](https://realalpha.app/builders/peter-steinberger/) · Peter Steinberger is creator of OpenClaw. · Created viral open-source personal agent OpenClaw and joined OpenAI to drive next-generation personal agents.
- Host: [Peter Yang](https://realalpha.app/people/peter-yang/) · Host, Behind the Craft · Led product at Roblox, Reddit, Twitch and Meta for 10+ years.
- Show: Behind the Craft
- Episode: [How OpenClaw's Creator Uses AI to Run His Life in 40 Minutes | Peter Steinberger](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/), Feb 1, 2026
- Moment: 14:37 to 17:19 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-can-handle-errands-but-its-camera-judgment-can-fail/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/?t=877

## Quote

> “i told it like **watch for strangers** and then it told me in the morning like peter there's someone”
> — [Peter Steinberger](https://realalpha.app/builders/peter-steinberger/) at [14:55](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/?t=895) · Behind the Craft

## Takeaways

1. The assistant can control lights, music, cameras, and other devices.
2. A blurry security-camera image led it to report a false intruder.
3. It found his passport and completed airline check-in.

## About this segment

Peter Steinberger describes giving his assistant access to home devices and cameras, then letting it check him in for a flight. The camera mistook a blurry couch for a stranger, showing why these automations need oversight.

From “How OpenClaw's Creator Uses AI to Run His Life in 40 Minutes | Peter Steinberger”, Feb 1, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[14:46](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/?t=886) my calendar it can access to all my files it can control my lights i use philips who yeah it can control my sonos so like i can i can tell to wake me up in the morning and i slowly like turn up the volume it has access to my cameras it was it was funny like i when i built access to the cameras i i told it like watch for strangers and then it told me in the morning like peter there's someone and i like i watched in the whole night and it made like screenshots the whole night of like my couch because it was like there was like the camera is pretty blurry and it looked like coming for someone was sitting on the couch and it assumed there was a stranger sitting on my couch the whole night wow but yeah i slowly it it has i'm actually thinking like in my place in vienna it also has access to my mechanics so it can actually control every part it could literally

[15:31](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/?t=931) lock me out of my house like in space artist say it's like oh can't do that okay how did you hook all this stuff up you just ask cloud to do it or or what you just yeah yeah literally you know you know there's a thing where we have skills so usually you you talk to it it will these things are really resourceful so it will like figure out an api it can google for it it can find your keys on your system you can give it keys and people use it for everything people build like a skill So it goes shopping for them on Tesco or buying stuff on Amazon.

[16:05](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/?t=965) I let it check in my flight from British Airways. And this is actually, I don't know if you've, I mean, you've used check-in sites. This is, I feel like this is almost like the HEI test. It was a Turing test, but like steering a browser to check you in on an airline website is like the ultimate test. And then the first time, my integration was pretty rough. So it took almost like 20 minutes. that was still in morocco and everything was very much hacked together and then it finally managed but it actually had to had to find my passport in my file system it found it on dropbox extract the key put everything in correct and it finally checked me in and i was like watching it and sweating wow yeah wow but now it works much better now it's like it does that within minutes so you can it also happily clicks the i'm a human checks on the browser because it literally just

[16:55](https://realalpha.app/v/AcwK1Uuwc0U/?t=1015) it literally just controls a browser on it has its own little computer over there and just kicks around so it's like really really difficult to detect from all those anti-bots systems because it it doesn't feel different from a human in in those patterns can you maybe like can you show us