Researcher: almost nothing interesting looks like a year-long black-box agent task

RexDouglass · x · 2026-11-06

Rex Douglass argues that even very smart people conceptualize long-range agent tasks as little black boxes that go off, work for a year, and return an answer—but almost nothing interesting actually looks like that. A counterintuitive critique of the popular long-horizon autonomous agent framing, suggesting real valuable tasks involve continuous interaction and intermediate feedback.

Related event: Researcher Questions the Black-Box Long-Horizon Agent Narrative(2 posts)→

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