"AI" Agents, A Single Point of Failure (with Margaret Mitchell), 2025.03.31

After "AI" stopped meaning anything, the hype salesmen moved on to "AI" "agents", those allegedly indefatigable assistants, allegedly capable of operating your software for you -- whether you need to make a restaurant reservation, book a flight, or book a flight to a restaurant reservation. Hugging Face's Margaret Mitchell joins Emily and Alex to help break down what agents actually are, and what to actually worry about.
References:
PwC launches AI agent operating system to revolutionize AI workflows for enterprises
An Open-Source AI Agent for Doing Tasks on the Web
Scale AI announces multimillion-dollar defense deal, a major step in U.S. military automation
Other references:
Why handing over total control to AI agents would be a huge mistake
Fully Autonomous AI Agents Should Not be Developed
Bender vs. Bubeck: The Great Chatbot Debate: Do LLMs Really Understand?
Democratize art
Fresh AI Hell:
DOGE suggests replacing workers with "AI" (of course)
Vape, or the tamagotchi gets it
Via @maaikeverbruggen
"AI" for psychotherapy, still bad, still hyped
Biology (not) of LLMs
Mark Cuban's grifty chatbot
Via @Hypervisible
Palate cleanser: "AI is the letdown"
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/tech/apple-ai-artificial-intelligence/index.html
Comic relief: "Fortified with AI"
Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.
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Emily
Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social
Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender
Alex
Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
Twitter: @alexhanna
Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.