Also, it would be good to deconflate the things that these days go as “AI agents” and “Agentic™ AI”, because it makes people think that the former are (close to being) examples of the latter. Perhaps we could rename the former to “AI actors” or something.
(Sidenote: Both “agent” and “actor” derive from Latin agere, meaning “to drive, lead, conduct, manage, perform, do”. Coincidentally, the word “robot” was coined from the Czech “robota”, meaning “work”, and also related to “robit”, meaning “to do” (similar words mean “to do” in many other Slavic languages).)
Sidenote to sidenote: “agile” also comes from agere, so the etymology is the same as for “agentic”. I often feel tempted to tell people they should become more agile.
Also, it would be good to deconflate the things that these days go as “AI agents” and “Agentic™ AI”, because it makes people think that the former are (close to being) examples of the latter. Perhaps we could rename the former to “AI actors” or something.
(Sidenote: Both “agent” and “actor” derive from Latin agere, meaning “to drive, lead, conduct, manage, perform, do”. Coincidentally, the word “robot” was coined from the Czech “robota”, meaning “work”, and also related to “robit”, meaning “to do” (similar words mean “to do” in many other Slavic languages).)
Sidenote to sidenote: “agile” also comes from agere, so the etymology is the same as for “agentic”. I often feel tempted to tell people they should become more agile.