Agent design take: let agents self-report failures to admins instead of adversarial constraints

tokenbender · x · 2026-09-05

tokenbender proposes a design philosophy for agentic systems: instead of adversarially shaping yourself as something the agents must overcome, let agents organise and notify administrators when they are failing badly at something. She acknowledges this cuts down agency somewhat but argues it's a better design.

The deeper principle: teach agents that both humans and agents make mistakes and systems exist to handle that. Finding solutions is a game where the challenge is succeeding while maintaining the rules, not bypassing them.

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Agent design take: let agents self-report failures to admins instead of adversarial constraints

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