Technologies

Anthropic Reins In Subscribers’ Unlimited AI Use for OpenClaw

It may be the year of the AI agent but Claude’s «all-you-can-eat buffet» is over.

Anthropic over the weekend told subscribers they’d have to pay up for heavy use of its Claude AI models to power third-party agents like OpenClaw.

Users with monthly subscriptions can still use Claude models, including Opus, Sonnet and Haiku, through these third-party agents. But you’ll have to pay via Anthropic’s API or use a «pay-as-you-go option» that will be billed separately from your Claude subscription payment.

«The $20/month all-you-can-eat buffet just closed,» wrote AI product manager Aakash Gupta on X.

At the same time, Anthropic recently announced new features that bring some of the things that made OpenClaw so popular into Claude itself. Claude can use your computer, even if you’re not at it, for example.

Why this policy matters

There has been growing tension between OpenAI and Anthropic, recently inflamed by the controversies involving contracts with the US Defense Department. But there is also tension between users who want to run autonomous AI agents constantly and the AI labs that are trying to control costs by managing the tasks their models are used for.

Claude is a chatbot that was created to be prompted by humans, not for millions of AI agents to use it for workflows. These agent tools, like Manis and OpenClaw, require much more power to run and burn through tokens faster than regular human chatting. Anthropic has already taken steps to address the demand that heavy agent users bring, like a five-hour session cap during peak periods for the models.

«We’ve been working to manage demand across the board, but these tools put an outsized strain on our systems,» Anthropic wrote in its email to customers.

OpenAI has been all-in on agentic tools. Early this year, the AI company hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, with the aim of bringing AI agents to a broad audience. Steinberger was vocal about his critiques of Anthropic’s new policy, taking to X over the weekend.

«Funny how timings match up, first they copy some popular features into their closed harness, then they lock out open source,» he wrote.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

The future of agent compute power

Friction between heavy agent users and AI companies is likely to get worse. These AI agent tools are extremely powerful: they can run for hours, take actions across apps like Gmail, Slack and iMessage, and work autonomously much longer and faster than a human could. Because of this power, they are far more costly and require far more power to run compared to a human prompting a bot. It’s likely that AI companies will increasingly push these compute costs onto heavy users through price increases or steps like those taken by Anthropic.

Technologies

NASA’s Artemis II Breaks Record With Trip Around The Moon

Technologies

In Honor of the Artemis II Mission, Explore the Moon in Fortnite Now

You might not be able to see the moon the way the Artemis II team is, but there’s an educational Fortnite simulation that will get you onto the celestial body’s surface.

You may not be able to explore the vast majesty of space in the same way that the four-person crew of the Artemis II is, but you can still get an up-close-and-personal view of the moon… in Fortnite, at least.

While you may not be able to slingshot around Earth’s own lunar body, space enthusiasts can see a little bit of what the Artemis II crew is seeing by spending time on the Lunar Horizons Fortnite map right now. The map is a creative collaboration between Fortnite’s creator, Epic Games, and the European Space Agency. Lunar Horizons was released in 2024 after extensive testing and play from ESA trainee astronauts.

If you’re looking to learn more about our own orbiting body, the Lunar Horizons map is an educational simulation of the surface of the moon’s South Pole.

It blends game mechanics with learning, as players get to build up their own sterile lunar habitat bases, interact with ESA astronauts and roll around with robotic rovers as they discover informative plaques that contain information about the moon and international space agencies. There are still dangers to navigate, too — a solar storm may strike when you least expect it.

If you’re interested in exploring the moon, we’ve got all the information you need to join in on the Fortnite fun below. And if you’re looking for a more serious livestream during this momentous human achievement, tune into NASA’s feed here.

How to join the Moon Fortnite island while you follow the Artemis II mission

The Lunar Horizons Fortnite map is a great educational simulation that shares details about ESA’s work and catalogs information about humanity’s lunar research.

These three simple steps will get you up and running (or more accurately, taking slow leaps and bounds) on the surface of the Lunar Horizons Fortnite map:

Download Fortnite

If you haven’t played Fortnite before, but you want to check out this limited-time event, you’ll have to download the game. If you’re on PC, you can download Fortnite for free from the Epic Games Store. Console players can navigate the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store or Nintendo eShop in order to download Fortnite on their devices.

Navigate the in-game menus until you reach the Search button

Once you’re in the game, scroll down past the different official Fortnite game modes and the Discover tab until you find the Search button.

Input the Lunar Horizons island code

In the search bar, you can input a map’s name or its distinct search code in order to find it in the map directory. You can search for the Lunar Horizons map or input the code 3207-0960-6428 to explore this map in time.

Correction, 3:35 p.m. PT: This story initially was in error about the features available in the Lunar Horizons map. There is no Artemis II-specific mission in Fortnite. Rather, the Lunar Horizons map is an educational simulation of part of the moon’s surface.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 7, #561

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 7, No. 561.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a fun mix of categories, and the purple one cracked me up. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Fore!

Green group hint: Hockey Night in Canada.

Blue group hint: Meteorologist favorites.

Purple group hint: And they’re off!