AI Agents is the next term to become familiar with in the progress of Artificial Intelligence toward autonomous control.

Here are the ways the term “AI Agents” is being defined…

IBM – “An artificial intelligence (AI) agent refers to a system or program that is capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system by designing its workflow and utilizing available tools.” (details here)

TechCrunch – “At its simplest, an AI agent is best described as AI-fueled software that does a series of jobs for you that a human customer service agent, HR person or IT help desk employee might have done in the past, although it could ultimately involve any task. You ask it to do things, and it does them for you, sometimes crossing multiple systems and going well beyond simply answering questions.” (details here)

Oracle – “Those large language models (LLMs) that companies have invested billions in? They’re getting real jobs as the brains behind AI agents: What if chatbots could understand your HR policies and have nuanced discussions with employees about them? What if a fraud detection system could act autonomously to shut down bad transactions as they’re happening? What if you could give an AI system a goal and it would autonomously do what it took to achieve it?” (details here)

Microsoft – Unlike standalone large language models (LLMs) or rule-based software/hardware systems, AI agents have these common features (details here):

• Planning: AI agents can plan and sequence actions to achieve specific goals. The integration of LLMs has revolutionized their planning capabilities.
• Tool usage: Advanced AI agents can use various tools, such as code execution, search, and computation capabilities, to perform tasks effectively. AI agents often use tools through function calling.
• Perception: AI agents can perceive and process information from their environment, to make them more interactive and context aware. This information includes visual, auditory, and other sensory data.
• Memory: AI agents have the ability to remember past interactions (tool usage and perception) and behaviors (tool usage and planning). They store these experiences and even perform self-reflection to inform future actions. This memory component allows for continuity and improvement in agent performance over time.

We have written a number of brief articles on the subject of AI and its intersection with Biblical Christianity. Some examples are shown below…

• Artificial Intelligence and the Biblical Christian (here)
• Artificial Intelligence may be God’s vehicle to bring a predicted ending to this world (here).
• Could Artificial Intelligence Bring on Mankind’s End-Times (here)?
• Artificial (here)

Simply put, AI Agents are the next step in the evolution of artificial intelligence becoming more of an essential part of our culture, both for our benefit and, in my view, our demise. We can all point to technological advances that have been feared by the fearful and applauded by the openminded. However, AI is different because, for the first time in human history, we are creating something both greater than ourselves and able to replicate without our intervention.

Just as God was not willing for man to become a form of god by banishing us at the Tower of Babel, humanity is progressing toward a culture of relinquishing control over our lives. Like the frog in the pot (explaination here), many will not see the trend, and others that do, will ignore their concerns over the trajectory until it is too late. Finally, there is not a solution to this dilemma. If we restrict AI growth, other malevolent forces (China, for example) will usurp the technology. If we push forward, as Americans always seem to do, it will only accelerate similar greedy control from within, rather than without. 

In short order (relative to history), there will be only one supreme entity that will be able to exercise control over AI. And what God will do is anyone’s guess, but the last chapter of the Book has been written so no one should be surprised by the eventual outcome.