Post

Like your definition, however, be better not to call them agents at all. Another case of anthropomorphism with AI (implying human characteristics they don't have) If something is called an agent, it must, in some sense, have agency, which, as you say, they don't.

I tried the "don't call anything agents" thing for a couple of years, but it feels counter-productive at this point - plenty of people are "building agents" now where what they mean is "LLMs achieving goals by running tools in a loop" and I want to be able to have conversations with them about it

18/9/25, 8:01 pm0 reposts5 likes

I also like being able to say "you do realize the one thing agents don't have is agency, right?" just to stir things up!

ℵ₁

@aleph1.underground.org

I don’t know why that would matter to anyone. The legal, philosophical, and sociological definitions of agency are already quite different.

Rob Bowley

@robbowley.net

Yeah fair point, can just start sounding unnecessarily obstructive. Classic case of semantic diffusion though

asura

@asura.dev

I don't understand the talk around using the word agent. We have had agent (and agentless) software for quite a while ie: terraform agent pool. That's not AI - it's a container that runs terraform. Prometheus agent, antivirus agent, logging agent... No LLM involved. "LLM agent" has no magic meaning

asura

@asura.dev

"Your terraform doesn't have agency" Uh good :)

Over the past few years in the AI world people have said "I'm building an agent!" and then if you ask them what an agent is you find out they have a unique definition that's not the same as anyone else's This really annoyed me! I think consensus may be forming now over a reasonable definition

alias (in chains)

@antiali.as

merriam-webster.comDefinition of AGENCYthe office or function of an agent; the relationship between a principal and that person's agent; the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power : operation… See the full definition

I’m curious how you define agency in such a way to exclude these things. Lacking “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power” or not being a “thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved?”

dictionary.cambridge.orgagency1. a business that represents one group of people when dealing with another…

More "the ability to take action or to choose what action to take", but at the human level, where having and using agency is important to living a rewarding life I don't think an AI agent "picking which tool to use" is the same thing, even when it shares both the word and the lose definition

Singularity's Bounty e/CC

@catblanketflower.yuwakisa.com

Well but picking a tool and then using the tool pretty much is the letter of the definition? It sounds like you're additionally reading "human" into that That tool may retrieve information but might also change something Like when a monkey puts a stick in a termite nest, is it showing agency?

alias (in chains)

@antiali.as