Models, Agents, and Tools

This lesson takes 9 minutes.

Objectives

Distinguish a model from an agent
Treat an agent’s report as a claim

Lesson

A model generates text. An agent wraps a model with tools, state, tasks and permissions so it can act in steps. “Task complete” from an agent is a claim to verify against the record.

Human authority stays final: governed computation, then evidence, then execution, then verification, then human review.

Terms

Agent, SI agent, Prompt injection

Sources

www.anthropic.com (opens in a new tab)

Check

- Nothing; the two words describe the same underlying system
- An agent needs no verification because it checks all of its own work
- An agent adds tools, state, and permissions for multi-step actions
- An agent is a physical robot rather than a software process
- Delete the logs
- Ask the agent to confirm it is done
- Check the result against the record
- Accept it; agents do not err
- With whichever agent finished first
- With the fastest model
- With the retrieval system
- With the human reviewer