Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:43 | Artificial Intelligence | Editorial INTI
Jakarta, INTI – On a night in Shenzhen, a group of software engineers gathered in a co-working space, their eyes fixed on high-resolution monitors. They were testing a revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) system called Manus. With its launch on March 6, this AI quickly shook the global tech community and reignited an age-old debate: What happens when AI stops asking for permission and starts making decisions on its own?
Manus is not just a chatbot or a sophisticated search engine. It is the world’s first autonomous AI agent—not only assisting humans but also replacing them. From analyzing financial transactions to selecting job candidates, Manus operates with speed and accuracy that humans struggle to match. This digital polymath can handle a wide range of tasks across industries without human hesitation.
At the end of 2024, China’s AI model, DeepSeek V3, stunned the world with its ability to rival OpenAI’s GPT-4. However, an even bigger shock came in January 2025 with the release of model R1, which outperformed OpenAI’s reasoning models, GPT-o1 and GPT-o3. This was China’s "Sputnik moment" in the global AI race, signaling that the nation was closing the gap with Silicon Valley.
Manus stands as concrete proof of China’s AI supremacy. Unlike other AI systems that still require human input, Manus can function independently—writing research reports, designing marketing campaigns, and even building websites automatically. The system integrates a multi-agent architecture, where a primary agent acts as an "executive," coordinating specialist sub-agents to complete complex tasks. Built on Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet model and Alibaba’s Qwen model, Manus is also connected to 29 open-source software tools, enabling API interactions, script execution, and software development without human intervention.
What sets Manus apart from competitors like ChatGPT-4 and Gemini is its ability to operate in a cloud computing environment without running on a user’s device. This means users can turn off their computers after assigning a task, while Manus continues working in the background until it delivers the results.
Imagine an invisible virtual assistant capable of opening browser tabs, filling out forms, writing emails, coding software, and making real-time decisions without ever getting tired. That’s what Manus offers. This system does not rely on a single neural network but functions like an executive managing a team of specialists.
For instance, given a set of job candidate resumes, Manus not only ranks them but also extracts relevant skills, matches them with job market trends, and provides optimal hiring recommendations in an automatically generated Excel report. If tasked with finding an apartment in San Francisco, it doesn’t just list properties but also considers crime rates, rental price trends, and weather patterns to provide the best recommendations.
Currently, Manus is in a limited trial phase, accessible only to select users. While initial reports indicate some technical challenges, its developers are confident that the system will be refined before a public release.
The arrival of Manus signals a major shift in the workforce and industries. This AI doesn’t just enhance efficiency—it has the potential to replace human labor on a massive scale. This raises profound ethical and regulatory questions:
China’s regulators, known for their openness to AI adoption, have yet to provide clear guidelines on AI autonomy. Meanwhile, Western regulators face significant challenges, as their systems still assume that AI must remain under human supervision. Manus breaks this assumption.
For decades, global AI dominance has remained in the hands of U.S. tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta. However, Manus disrupts this paradigm. It is not just an AI innovation but a new category of artificial intelligence capable of acting independently.
This transformation has unsettled Silicon Valley. AI industry leaders quietly acknowledge that the U.S.'s AI dominance could be overtaken by China. Manus may be the beginning of a new era where AI is no longer just a tool but a fully autonomous worker.
The biggest question now is no longer whether Manus is real—the evidence is clear. The question is how quickly the world will catch up. As AI becomes increasingly autonomous, we must reconsider the meaning of work, creativity, and competition in an era where intelligence is no longer exclusive to humans.
Manus marks a new era in AI development, shifting from being a mere tool to an independent actor capable of making decisions and completing tasks without human intervention. Its superiority in multi-agent architecture and asynchronous operation places it far beyond existing AI systems.
However, this advancement also brings significant challenges, both ethically and in terms of regulation. The world must now prepare for the consequences of AI that operates beyond traditional limitations. Questions about oversight, responsibility, and the impact on the global workforce are becoming more urgent than ever. Are we ready for an era where AI is no longer just an assistant but a decision-maker in various sectors of life?
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