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Agentic AI systems violate the implicit assumptions of database design

arpitbhayani.me

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Re: Agentic AI systems violate the implicit assumptions of database design

#111

Post by Pxtl »

sgarland wrote: post #104
Pxtl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do you do for "okay, we need to run this script that we've decided is a necessary operation". Special account? Everything go through the build server? I've been looking for tooling for "I need to do a production operation but I want it to have proper interlocks and reviews".

If it’s an incident, it’s usually manually run after review, with an audience. If it isn’t, it’s run as a script that goes through normal PR review.

That's what I'm getting at - so in the end, somebody really does need to have access to a regular sysadmin account on the server, even if it's not their default login. I was hoping that there was an option that didn't involve that sort of workflow, or abusing migration tools (since this isn't exactly a migration).

Re: Agentic AI systems violate the implicit assumptions of database design

#112

Post by grandimam »

I agree with some of reasonings in the article especially around agents write behaviors. However, a large portion of this is a consequence of poorly-defined agent roles, and moving away from building deterministic systems.

> An agent working on a customer analytics task might issue a join across five tables that has never been issued before, hold the connection while it thinks about the result, then issue a completely different follow-up.

Aren't agents simply automated human persona's? Like, why would an Agent make a join across five tables given that its reasoning is grounded on human-aligned decisions. For eg.

If the agent knows the schema, and is aware of the indexes defined. Then, shouldn't it only work its way through those 'known paths'. Why would you allow the agents to deviate known paths?

Re: Agentic AI systems violate the implicit assumptions of database design

#113

Post by [deleted] »

fl4regun wrote: post #60
nananana9 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way we've always done it - glance at it and see if the numbers look like they're within an order of magnitude of what looks reasonable.

so what if there were some numbers in the report which are in actuality, an order of magnitude or two outside of what you think is reasonable, because something was wrong, but the AI agent reports something that looks normal?

[deleted]

Re: Agentic AI systems violate the implicit assumptions of database design

#114

Post by nananana9 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #90
tremon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as the LLM only makes errors in the single-digit percentage range, everything is peachy. Make number go up, but not by too much.

If you already know the report's numbers, why are you asking an LLM to generate it?

Usually because you need something vaguely technical and authoritative sounding to push for a decision you're already made.

Re: Agentic AI systems violate the implicit assumptions of database design

#115

Post by siddhant-jain »

mike_hearn wrote: post #107

It's interesting how many people are just writing off the whole premise of letting agents work directly with databases. SQL is a language and not an API because it was intended to be hand written and often still is. There are lots of legitimate use cases for this if the safety level can be raised high enough. I'm doing some research on this topic at the moment, along with many other people on the database team at Ora…

I'm researching the same from the app side. Your Transaction Guard point is spot‑on for DB‑level idempotency. What's less clear to me: where do you see the biggest remaining gap for agent safety, budget enforcement, risk classification (irreversible actions), or something else the DB can't easily cover?
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