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Building Effective "Agents"

(www.anthropic.com)
597 points jascha_eng | 9 comments | 20 Dec 24 12:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source | bottom
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simonw ◴[20 Dec 24 22:25 UTC] No.42475700[source]▶
This is by far the most practical piece of writing I've seen on the subject of "agents" - it includes actionable definitions, then splits most of the value out into "workflows" and describes those in depth with example applications.

There's also a cookbook with useful code examples: https://github.com/anthropics/anthropic-cookbook/tree/main/p...

Blogged about this here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/20/building-effective-age...

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Animats ◴[21 Dec 24 07:21 UTC] No.42478039[source]▶
Yes, they have actionable definitions, but they are defining something quite different than the normal definition of an "agent". An agent is a party who acts for another. Often this comes from an employer-employee relationship.

This matters mostly when things go wrong. Who's responsible? The airline whose AI agent gave out wrong info about airline policies found, in court, that their "intelligent agent" was considered an agent in legal terms. Which meant the airline was stuck paying for their mistake.

Anthropic's definition: Some customers define agents as fully autonomous systems that operate independently over extended periods, using various tools to accomplish complex tasks.

That's an autonomous system, not an agent. Autonomy is about how much something can do without outside help. Agency is about who's doing what for whom, and for whose benefit and with what authority. Those are independent concepts.

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1. simonw ◴[21 Dec 24 08:17 UTC] No.42478201[source]▶
Where did you get the idea that your definition there is the "normal" definition of agent, especially in the context of AI?

I ask because you seem very confident in it - and my biggest frustration about the term "agent" is that so many people are confident that their personal definition is clearly the one everyone else should be using.

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2. PhilippGille ◴[21 Dec 24 10:37 UTC] No.42478826[source]▶
Didn't he mention it was the court's definition?

But I'm not sure if that's true. The court didn't define anything, in contrary they only said that (in simplified terms) the chatbot was part of the website and it's reasonable to expect the info on their website to be accurate.

The closest I could find to the chatbot being considered an agent in legal terms (an entity like an employee) is this:

> Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives – including a chatbot.

Source: https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/202...

3. JonChesterfield ◴[21 Dec 24 10:49 UTC] No.42478885[source]▶
Defining "agent" as "thing with agency" seems legitimate to me, what with them being the same word.
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4. simonw ◴[21 Dec 24 12:50 UTC] No.42479373[source]▶
That logic doesn't work for me, because many words have multiple meanings. "Agency" can also be a noun that means an organization that you hire - like a design agency. Or it can mean the CIA.

I'm not saying it's not a valid definition of the term, I'm pushing back on the idea that it's THE single correct definition of the term.

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5. Nekit1234007 ◴[21 Dec 24 18:08 UTC] No.42481146{3}[source]▶
May I push back on the idea that a single word may mean (completely) different things?
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6. chrisweekly ◴[21 Dec 24 19:01 UTC] No.42481479{4}[source]▶
What's the single, unambiguous definition of the word "cleave"?
7. Der_Einzige ◴[21 Dec 24 19:03 UTC] No.42481493{3}[source]▶
Anything involving real agents likely does get your local spymaster interested. I assume all good AI work attracts the three letter types to make sure that the researcher isn’t trying to make AI that can make bioweapons…
8. ToValueFunfetti ◴[21 Dec 24 19:11 UTC] No.42481545{4}[source]▶
Aloha! Indeed, the language is being cleaved by such oversights. You can be in charge of overlooking this issue, effective ahead of two weeks from now. We'll peruse your results and impassionately sanction anything you call out (at least when it's unravelable). This endeavor should prove invaluable. Aloha!
9. simonw ◴[21 Dec 24 20:56 UTC] No.42482230{4}[source]▶
It's pretty clearly true.

Bank: financial institution, edge of a river, verb to stash something away

Spring: a season, a metal coil, verb to jump

Match: verb to match things together, noun a thing to start fires, noun a competition between two teams

Bat: flying mammal, stick for hitting things

And so on.