Dangers of AI Agents is inspired by 'MS Copilot - Flying Straight Into The Mountain' from a Medium Article by Vaclav Vincalek and published in Recurrent Patterns - Dec 9, 2024
This article satirically criticizes Microsoft's announcement of autonomous agents in Copilot Studio and Dynamics 365. The author argues that this new technology, while marketed as revolutionary, will likely create more problems than it solves, particularly for IT departments.
Key points include:
1. Microsoft is introducing autonomous agents in Copilot Studio and 10 pre-configured agents in Dynamics 365.
2. The company envisions organizations having a "constellation of agents" for various business processes.
3. The author expresses skepticism about allowing anyone in an organization to create and manage these agents.
4. Concerns are raised about potential chaos resulting from interconnected automated tasks created by non-expert users.
5. The article highlights the challenges IT departments will face in managing and troubleshooting these agent networks, especially when creators leave the organization.
6. The author criticizes Microsoft's business model of creating products that generate problems, then selling additional products to solve those problems.
7. The piece concludes by suggesting that after initial excitement, the new technology will likely cause widespread difficulties across organizations.
Error Propogation
A chain of autonomous agents can be severely compromised by a single error in one step, leading to a cascading effect of failures across interconnected systems. This phenomenon, known as a failure cascade, can occur when the output of one agent becomes the input for subsequent agents in different departments.
Here's how this process can unfold:
1. Initial Error: One agent in the chain makes an incorrect decision or produces erroneous output.
2. Propagation: The faulty information is passed on to the next agent in the chain, which uses it as the basis for its own operations.
3. Amplification: Each subsequent agent in the chain may further compound the initial error, potentially leading to increasingly severe deviations from intended outcomes.
4. Cross-departmental Impact: As the flawed information moves through different departments, it can affect various aspects of an organization's operations, from decision-making to resource allocation.
5. Difficulty in Detection: The interconnected nature of these systems can make it challenging to identify the original source of the error, especially if the agents operate with a degree of opacity.
This vulnerability is particularly concerning in scenarios where agents have direct real-world impacts or operate at high frequencies, as the potential for rapid and widespread damage increases significantly. The complexity of coordinating multiple agents and the potential for emergent behaviors further exacerbate this risk.
The simple moral here is to be very wary of cross-department AI agents.
If you are going to use them, then someone in your organization must take responsibility for checking the outputs at each stage and sign them off, before they are used for the basis of the next departments agent.
If you would like to learn more about AI in business or AI Agents in particular, contact us at Digital Advantage.
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