AI agents

Technology

4 rabbit holes · 4 people exploring

Common starting questions

• Is chat a good interface for AI tools or just the default we ended up with?
• What's the difference between a workflow and an agent?

Rabbit holes

1. is a chat box actually a good interface?

   Started from an essay arguing chatbots aren't the future of interfaces. The main complaint: an empty text box tells you nothing about what it can do. Same discoverability problem command lines had, and GUIs won partly because menus show you your options.

   Chidi Eze · 6 sources

2. what actually makes an 'agent' an agent

   Arjun Pillai · 5 sources

3. a 1983 paper called Ironies of Automation describes every problem with AI agents

   Short paper, very readable, by Lisanne Bainbridge. The core irony: you automate the easy parts, leave the human to watch, and then expect them to take over in exactly the hardest situations, after they've lost practice and context.

   Dev Malhotra · 5 sources

4. the 1997 debate over whether software should be a tool or an assistant

   Callie Sutherland · 6 sources