TINYFISH
CURRENT
A journal for living in the agentic ageIn the 1980s, an expert system called XCON got so good at configuring computers that DEC couldn't run without it. Half its rules had to be rewritten every year. The world kept changing, and the system was load-bearing. We found that curve everywhere in this issue. Knowledge becomes callable, which makes it easier to use and harder to question. The model behind an agent swaps out and nobody tells the user. Practitioners who insist on containment are responding to a stage they don't control. The hard problem with agents is what success costs.
ISSUE #48
CURRENT
In the 1980s, an expert system called XCON got so good at configuring computers that DEC couldn't run without it. Half its rules had to be rewritten every year. The world kept changing, and the system was load-bearing. We found that curve everywhere in this issue. Knowledge becomes callable, which makes it easier to use and harder to question. The model behind an agent swaps out and nobody tells the user. Practitioners who insist on containment are responding to a stage they don't control. The hard problem with agents is what success costs.
ISSUE #48
Monday, September 28
