Should AI Agents Be On-Call First Responders?
AustinZHenley · x · 2026-08-23
Lorin Hochstein reflects on Boris Tane's argument for making AI agents the primary on-call responders, paging humans only when they fail:
Key Arguments
- Putting agents on-call is akin to implementing control system automation.
- Agents are extremely complex systems, aligning with Ashby's Law: handling more states requires more complexity.
- This automation may lead to "wild" reliability incidents due to unpredictable interactions.
Risks
- Agents themselves can fail, necessitating a second layer of monitoring.
- Introduces new failure modes, shifting cognitive load from routine tasks to understanding complex agent behaviors.
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