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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 fo

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.

solidasparagus 2y ago
That's only one of many definitions for the word agent outside of the context of AI. Another is something produces effects on the world. Another is something that has agency. Sort of interesting that we've coalesced on this term that has many definitions, sometimes conflicting, but where many of the definitions vaguely fit into what an "AI Agent" could be for a given person. But in the context of AI, Agent as Anthropic defines it is an appropriate word because it is a thing that has agency.
- Animats 2y ago
  > But in the context of AI, Agent as Anthropic defines it is an appropriate word because it is a thing that has agency. That seems circular.
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    It would only be circular if agency was only defined as “the property of being an agent”. That circle of reasoning isn’t being proposed as the formal definitions by anyone. Perhaps you mean tautological. In which case, an agent having agency would be an informal tautology. A relationship so basic to the subject matter that it essentially must be true. Which would be the strongest possible type of argument.
simonw 2y ago
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.
- PhilippGille 2y ago
  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/2024/2024bccrt149/2024bccrt149.html https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/202...
- JonChesterfield 2y ago
  Defining "agent" as "thing with agency" seems legitimate to me, what with them being the same word.
  - simonw 2y ago
    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.
    - Nekit1234007 2y ago
      May I push back on the idea that a single word may mean (completely) different things?
pvg 2y ago
AI people have been using a much broader definition of 'agent' for ages, though. One from Russel and Norvig's 90s textbook: "Anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment through sensors and acting upon that environment through actuators" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent#As_a_definition_of_artificial_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent#As_a_definit...
- minasmorath 2y ago
  That definition feels like it's playing on the verb, the idea of having "agency" in the world, and not on the noun, of being an "agent" for another party. The former is a philosophical category, while the latter has legal meaning and implication, and it feels somewhat disingenuous to continue to mix them up in this way.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    Interesting. The best agents don't have agency, or at least don't use it. You can think of this in video game terms: Players have agency. NPCs are "agencs", but don't have agency. But they're still not just objects in the game - they can move themselves and react to their environment.
    - minasmorath 2y ago
      That's actually a great example of what I'm saying, because I don't think the NPCs are agents at all in the traditional sense of "One that acts or has the power or authority to act on behalf of another." Where would the NPC derive its power and authority from? There is a human somewhere in the chain giving it 100% of its parameters, and that human is ultimately 100% responsible for the configuration of the NPC, which is why we don't blame the NPC in the game for behaving in a buggy way, we blame the devs. To say the NPC has agency puts some level of metaphysical responsibility about decision making and culpability on the thing that it doesn't have. An AI "agent" is the same way, it is not culpable for its actions, the humans who set it up are, but we're leading people to believe that if the AI goes off script then the AI is somehow responsible for its own actions, which is simply not true. These are not autonomous beings, they're technology products.
jeffreygoesto 2y ago
And "autonomous" is "having one's own laws". https://www.etymonline.com/word/autonomous https://www.etymonline.com/word/autonomous
jcims 2y ago
>Anthropic's definition: Some customers define agents as fully autonomous systems that operate independently over extended periods, using various tools to accomplish complex tasks. But that's not their definition, and they explicitly describe that definition as an 'autonomous system'. Their definition comes in the next paragraph: "At Anthropic, we categorize all these variations as agentic systems, but draw an important architectural distinction between workflows and agents: * Workflows are systems where LLMs and tools are orchestrated through predefined code paths. Agents, on the other hand, are systems where LLMs dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks. * Agents, on the other hand, are systems where LLMs dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks."

solidasparagus 2y ago

That's only one of many definitions for the word agent outside of the context of AI. Another is something produces effects on the world. Another is something that has agency. Sort of interesting that we've coalesced on this term that has many definitions, sometimes conflicting, but where many of the definitions vaguely fit into what an "AI Agent" could be for a given person. But in the context of AI, Agent as Anthropic defines it is an appropriate word because it is a thing that has agency.

Animats 2y ago
> But in the context of AI, Agent as Anthropic defines it is an appropriate word because it is a thing that has agency. That seems circular.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  It would only be circular if agency was only defined as “the property of being an agent”. That circle of reasoning isn’t being proposed as the formal definitions by anyone. Perhaps you mean tautological. In which case, an agent having agency would be an informal tautology. A relationship so basic to the subject matter that it essentially must be true. Which would be the strongest possible type of argument.

simonw 2y ago

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.

PhilippGille 2y ago
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/2024/2024bccrt149/2024bccrt149.html https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/202...
JonChesterfield 2y ago
Defining "agent" as "thing with agency" seems legitimate to me, what with them being the same word.
- simonw 2y ago
  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.
  - Nekit1234007 2y ago
    May I push back on the idea that a single word may mean (completely) different things?

pvg 2y ago

AI people have been using a much broader definition of 'agent' for ages, though. One from Russel and Norvig's 90s textbook: "Anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment through sensors and acting upon that environment through actuators" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent#As_a_definition_of_artificial_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent#As_a_definit...

minasmorath 2y ago
That definition feels like it's playing on the verb, the idea of having "agency" in the world, and not on the noun, of being an "agent" for another party. The former is a philosophical category, while the latter has legal meaning and implication, and it feels somewhat disingenuous to continue to mix them up in this way.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Interesting. The best agents don't have agency, or at least don't use it. You can think of this in video game terms: Players have agency. NPCs are "agencs", but don't have agency. But they're still not just objects in the game - they can move themselves and react to their environment.
  - minasmorath 2y ago
    That's actually a great example of what I'm saying, because I don't think the NPCs are agents at all in the traditional sense of "One that acts or has the power or authority to act on behalf of another." Where would the NPC derive its power and authority from? There is a human somewhere in the chain giving it 100% of its parameters, and that human is ultimately 100% responsible for the configuration of the NPC, which is why we don't blame the NPC in the game for behaving in a buggy way, we blame the devs. To say the NPC has agency puts some level of metaphysical responsibility about decision making and culpability on the thing that it doesn't have. An AI "agent" is the same way, it is not culpable for its actions, the humans who set it up are, but we're leading people to believe that if the AI goes off script then the AI is somehow responsible for its own actions, which is simply not true. These are not autonomous beings, they're technology products.

jeffreygoesto 2y ago

And "autonomous" is "having one's own laws". https://www.etymonline.com/word/autonomous https://www.etymonline.com/word/autonomous

jcims 2y ago

>Anthropic's definition: Some customers define agents as fully autonomous systems that operate independently over extended periods, using various tools to accomplish complex tasks. But that's not their definition, and they explicitly describe that definition as an 'autonomous system'. Their definition comes in the next paragraph: "At Anthropic, we categorize all these variations as agentic systems, but draw an important architectural distinction between workflows and agents: * Workflows are systems where LLMs and tools are orchestrated through predefined code paths. Agents, on the other hand, are systems where LLMs dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks. * Agents, on the other hand, are systems where LLMs dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks."