I'm pretty convinced at this point that the term "agents" is almost useless, because so many people are carrying entirely different mental models of what the term means - so it invites conversations where no-one is actually talking about the same exact idea.
Good point, I should've defined this a bit more clearly in the post.
Honestly, I'm not toooo sure how to segment the term "agents", but in my mind there seems to be one realm for retrieval assistance. Ie. how do we make the ChatGPT-ish experience better. How can I better extract information I need from the collective human knowledge base. And another realm for letting the agent do things so I don't have to do it. Ie. "how can I get an Upwork assistant/Chief of staff/freelancer for cheaper and faster".
Nevertheless, editing the post now would simply create more confusion. Hopefully this discussion at least invites conversation about the conversation on agents itself haha.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that the term "agents" is almost useless, because so many people are carrying entirely different mental models of what the term means - so it invites conversations where no-one is actually talking about the same exact idea.