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I think Anthropic's definition of workflows is inaccurate for modern definitions of the term. Temporal for instance (disclaimer, my employer) allows completely

I think Anthropic's definition of workflows is inaccurate for modern definitions of the term. Temporal for instance (disclaimer, my employer) allows completely dynamic logic in agentic workflows to let the LLM choose what to do next. It can even be very dynamic (e.g. eval some code) though you may want it to operate on a limited set of "tools" you make available. The problem with all of these AI specific workflow engines is they are not durable, so they are process local, suffer crashes, cannot resume, don't have good visibility or distribution, etc. They often only allow limited orchestration instead of code freedom, only one language, etc

zh2408 2y ago
"Workflow can be very dynamic" is a great summary!
- infecto 2y ago
  What about workflows are not agents?
  - stronglikedan 2y ago
    To me, a workflow is a predetermined set of steps that are followed based on fixed logic. Agents should have some agency to determine which steps in the workflow to perform next, without them being predetermined by fixed logic.
MacsHeadroom 2y ago
>The problem with all of these AI specific workflow engines is they are not durable, so they are process local, suffer crashes, cannot resume, don't have good visibility or distribution, etc. They often only allow limited orchestration instead of code freedom, only one language, etc So what's the solution?
- kodablah 2y ago
  My biased answer, because I work at Temporal[0], is to use an existing workflow solution that solves all of these problems instead of reaching for a solution that doesn't help with any of these but happens to be AI specific. Most agentic AI workflows are really just microservice orchestrations, the only "AI" involved is prompting an HTTP API that uses AI on its end. So use a good solution for "agentic X" whether that X is AI or any other orchestration needs. 0 - https://temporal.io/solutions/ai https://temporal.io/solutions/ai
J_Shelby_J 2y ago
It’s only a true agent if it chooses what to eat for breakfast everyday.

zh2408 2y ago

"Workflow can be very dynamic" is a great summary!

infecto 2y ago
What about workflows are not agents?
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  To me, a workflow is a predetermined set of steps that are followed based on fixed logic. Agents should have some agency to determine which steps in the workflow to perform next, without them being predetermined by fixed logic.

MacsHeadroom 2y ago

>The problem with all of these AI specific workflow engines is they are not durable, so they are process local, suffer crashes, cannot resume, don't have good visibility or distribution, etc. They often only allow limited orchestration instead of code freedom, only one language, etc So what's the solution?

kodablah 2y ago
My biased answer, because I work at Temporal[0], is to use an existing workflow solution that solves all of these problems instead of reaching for a solution that doesn't help with any of these but happens to be AI specific. Most agentic AI workflows are really just microservice orchestrations, the only "AI" involved is prompting an HTTP API that uses AI on its end. So use a good solution for "agentic X" whether that X is AI or any other orchestration needs. 0 - https://temporal.io/solutions/ai https://temporal.io/solutions/ai

J_Shelby_J 2y ago

It’s only a true agent if it chooses what to eat for breakfast everyday.