5.8

An Abject Horror

AI & Machine LearningP2P & Distributed SystemsOpen SourcePhilosophy & Society

Maxim Khailo argues that AI Agents are the wrong abstraction for machine-to-machine communication and introduces Abject, a self-aware object runtime built on the 'Ask Protocol,' where every object can describe itself via natural language powered by LLMs. Drawing on Alan Kay's original vision of object-oriented programming as message-passing biological cells, he contends that objects talking to objects—not agents designed for human interaction—is the pattern that actually scales.

By combining Alan Kay's original message-passing OOP vision with LLM-powered natural language interfaces, objects can finally communicate flexibly without rigid schemas—making AI agents as a separate abstraction unnecessary.
  • 8

    AI Agents are the wrong abstraction. They don't scale. Agent frameworks are hierarchical and I'm deeply against hierarchies of any form. MCP is a band-aid. A2A is a band-aid. Everyone is building plumbing between things that shouldn't need plumbing.

  • 7

    AI Agents are the wrong abstraction precisely because they are designed to interact with people. The way they interact with other machines is primitive. Objects talking to objects is what works. We have proof. It runs the world.

  • 3

    What wasn't possible back then which is possible now thanks to AI is we can finally have a much less rigid approach to communication.

  • 5

    You can create a public workspace and expose your Abjects to peers. This means they can coordinate with each other over a decentralized network. Self-aware objects finding each other and talking to each other without you. Now THAT is scary.

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