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Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

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Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#31

Post by aithrowawaycomm »

UltraSane wrote: post #24
simonw wrote: post #2

Because I collect definitions of "agent", here's the one this book uses: > An agent is something that acts in an environment; it does something. Agents include worms, dogs, thermostats, airplanes, robots, humans, companies, and countries. https://artint.info/3e/html/ArtInt3e.Ch1.S1.html I think of this as the "academic" definition, or sometimes the "thermostat" definition (though maybe I should call it the "worms and…

agent has almost as many definitions as set.

I would say the situation for "agent" is about 10,000 times worse than it is for "set," since all the definitions for set are essentially different ways to make Frege / Cantor more rigorous. The underlying scientific concept hasn't actually changed that much: "belonging to a set and a few certain operations are primitives, join these primitives with formal logic." This is the idea behind a famous intro book, Paul Halmos's Naive Set Theory. Even a set theory with Russell's paradox is scientifically defensible, it just needs refinement.

In contrast, "agent" discusses a huge range of scientific concepts, and I have yet to see a single definition of agent that holds up to scientific scrutiny. This book has managed to define "agent" in a way that is entirely equivalent to "physical object" - putting worms and thermostats in the same category broadens the category to utter uselessness. By this definition, Jupiter is an agent.

The only utility of definitions like this is for dishonest people to cheat at arguments: claiming simple tools are agents, then arguing they are like dogs and humans, which are also agents. It's a total waste of time, coming from AI's shameless disrespect for scientific standards.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#32

Post by Peteragain »

To add to the mix, agents are nominally proactive, rather than a tool wielded by someone. This (again nominally) means having goals, although the goals can often be in the observer's mind rather than the agent itself. Reasoning with goals is trivial for humans but the algorithms get hairy.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#33

Post by fc417fc802 »

aithrowawaycomm wrote: post #31
UltraSane wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agent has almost as many definitions as set.

I would say the situation for "agent" is about 10,000 times worse than it is for "set," since all the definitions for set are essentially different ways to make Frege / Cantor more rigorous. The underlying scientific concept hasn't actually changed that much: "belonging to a set and a few certain operations are primitives, join these primitives with formal logic." This is the idea behind a famous intro book, Paul Hal…

> By this definition, Jupiter is an agent.

Is it? What task was it designed to carry out autonomously? Where are the inputs and the logic hiding?

> for dishonest people to cheat at arguments

Only if the goal is to deceive. If the communication is well intentioned then there is nothing inherently wrong with it despite it not being to your liking.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#34

Post by fc417fc802 »

nivertech wrote: post #21
light_triad wrote: post #15

Here's a few more definitions of agents: Agents are a coupling of perception, reasoning, and acting with preferences or goals. They prefer some states of the world to other states, and they act to try to achieve the states they prefer most (this book) AI agents are rational agents. They make rational decisions based on their perceptions and data to produce optimal performance and results. An AI agent senses its envir…

> AI agents are rational agents. They make rational decisions this is wrong, it's almost impossible to build a fully-rational (in the Game-Theoretic sense) agent for almost any real life usecase, except some textbook toy problems. There are many levels of Intelligence/Cognitions for Agents. Here's an incomplete hierarchy out of my head (the real classification will deserve a whole blog post or a paper): - Dumb/NPC/Ze…

When people use phrases like "rational decisions" it is generally a statement of intent. To interpret it in a manner which is so obviously incorrect seems rather pointless.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#35

Post by jsemrau »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #13
simonw wrote: post #2

Because I collect definitions of "agent", here's the one this book uses: > An agent is something that acts in an environment; it does something. Agents include worms, dogs, thermostats, airplanes, robots, humans, companies, and countries. https://artint.info/3e/html/ArtInt3e.Ch1.S1.html I think of this as the "academic" definition, or sometimes the "thermostat" definition (though maybe I should call it the "worms and…

How are agents different from daemons? And are both essentially cybernetic feedback loops?

(1) Daemons run usually in the background while agents are main loop.

(2) Daemons are predefined and can't adapt to changes easily -- this is a function of narrow AI vs general AI (not to be confused with AGI)

(3) Daemons have few interactions with the environment while for the agent the environment (tools, sensors, plans, memory, and context) is everything.

These are just a few from the top of my head.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#36

Post by nivertech »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #34
nivertech wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI agents are rational agents. They make rational decisions this is wrong, it's almost impossible to build a fully-rational (in the Game-Theoretic sense) agent for almost any real life usecase, except some textbook toy problems. There are many levels of Intelligence/Cognitions for Agents. Here's an incomplete hierarchy out of my head (the real classification will deserve a whole blog post or a paper): - Dumb/NPC/Ze…

When people use phrases like "rational decisions" it is generally a statement of intent. To interpret it in a manner which is so obviously incorrect seems rather pointless.

> AI agents are rational agents. They make rational decisions based on their perceptions and data to produce optimal performance and results. An AI agent senses its environment with physical or software interfaces (AWS)

my reply was to this definition, where the adjective "rational" was used with the noun "agents" by AWS, so it's obvious they're not talking about Human agents.

> When people use phrases like "rational decisions" it is generally a statement of intent.

I frequently hear on the news something like "the terrorists are rational". They completely missing the point that an agent might be rational (i.e. optimizing) for one variable, while they projecting it on a completely diffrerent variable. I.e. for non-textbook toy problems agents usually have lots of variables they care about, so when you talking about rationality you should specify that specific variable, and not generalize that b/c they're somewhat rational at one thing, they will be rational at all other things.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#37

Post by fc417fc802 »

nivertech wrote: post #36
fc417fc802 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people use phrases like "rational decisions" it is generally a statement of intent. To interpret it in a manner which is so obviously incorrect seems rather pointless.

> AI agents are rational agents. They make rational decisions based on their perceptions and data to produce optimal performance and results. An AI agent senses its environment with physical or software interfaces (AWS) my reply was to this definition, where the adjective "rational" was used with the noun "agents" by AWS, so it's obvious they're not talking about Human agents. > When people use phrases like "rational…

> it's obviously they're not talking Computational non-Human agents.

I don't follow your meaning?

> you should specify that specific variable, and not generalize that b/c they're somewhat rational at one thing, they will be rational at all other things.

You are being overly pedantic, although you might not realize it. The meaning in that example is the differentiation between someone with a nuanced goal who can be reasoned with versus someone who has lost all reason and only desires to lash out at others. The latter is a distinct possibility when it comes to violent acts.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#38

Post by nivertech »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #37
nivertech wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI agents are rational agents. They make rational decisions based on their perceptions and data to produce optimal performance and results. An AI agent senses its environment with physical or software interfaces (AWS) my reply was to this definition, where the adjective "rational" was used with the noun "agents" by AWS, so it's obvious they're not talking about Human agents. > When people use phrases like "rational…

> it's obviously they're not talking Computational non-Human agents. I don't follow your meaning? > you should specify that specific variable, and not generalize that b/c they're somewhat rational at one thing, they will be rational at all other things. You are being overly pedantic, although you might not realize it. The meaning in that example is the differentiation between someone with a nuanced goal who can be re…

> I don't follow your meaning?

sorry, bad edit, should be:

... so it's obvious they're (AWS) not talking about Human agents.

Re: Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents

#40

Post by bsenftner »

nivertech wrote: post #9
simonw wrote: post #2

Because I collect definitions of "agent", here's the one this book uses: > An agent is something that acts in an environment; it does something. Agents include worms, dogs, thermostats, airplanes, robots, humans, companies, and countries. https://artint.info/3e/html/ArtInt3e.Ch1.S1.html I think of this as the "academic" definition, or sometimes the "thermostat" definition (though maybe I should call it the "worms and…

It always amazed me that different branches of CS, AI/ML and Complex Systems/Complexity Sciences have different views on agents. Objects in OOP - something which can have properties/attributes, and methods (verbs/commands). Usually modeled after a real-life/domain enitites. Aggregates in Domain-Driven Design (DDD) - transactional clusters of objects modeling a collections of entities in the domain. Actors in Actor Mo…

How's about: LLM Agent: any packaging of the use of AI such that the details of using said AI are packaged, hidden, and the user of this LLM Agent does not need to concern themselves with AI at all, only the intelligence services provided by what is now a simulated personality the user can willfully self deceive they are working with a human.
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