> And I'm saying, that is, in fact, not how they work
I don't think you are right (I was ready to give you the benefice of the doubt, but the rest of your comment makes me think I should not trust your judgement). It is what they do under the wood, and they output text. You read the text, and this text says "I have feelings and I really want to achieve my goal". But this text is just what the LLM returns, not what the LLM really does: the LLM does not understand what this text means, it just understands that it is a valid and convincing sentence in the given context.
> To simplify, just ask the question: is it continuing to work towards an end, even when challenges are encountered? Yes, therefore, it is persistent.
No, they don't continue even when challenges are encountered. They try X, if X does not work, they _abandon_ X and try Y. They will query the web to find another Y, then another Z, then another one. They don't "insist", they don't "don't take no for an answer", they just explore everything. What happened with agents who got out of their sandbox is exactly that: they try to reach a flag, they noticed it was not possible in the way X, so they explore other ways, until their exploration show that going around the sandbox would help. But they did not re-asked and re-asked the same person again and again the same question. If the person says "no", they abandon this approach and move to another one.
> They certainly could be called persistent in delivering the mail
That is blatantly not the common usage of "persistent". Ask anyone in the street "is your postman persistent", and they will NOT tell you "oh, yes, they are" just because they are a postman. They will only say that for _some_ postmen, the ones that are indeed persistent: the ones that goes the extra miles that a "normal" postman do not.
> Again: that is not required by the definition or common meaning of "persistent".
That is just not true. Ask an LLM, they will confirm you that it's incorrect: people don't consider postmen "persistent" because they don't give up half way through their route.
I don't think you are right (I was ready to give you the benefice of the doubt, but the rest of your comment makes me think I should not trust your judgement). It is what they do under the wood, and they output text. You read the text, and this text says "I have feelings and I really want to achieve my goal". But this text is just what the LLM returns, not what the LLM really does: the LLM does not understand what this text means, it just understands that it is a valid and convincing sentence in the given context.
> To simplify, just ask the question: is it continuing to work towards an end, even when challenges are encountered? Yes, therefore, it is persistent.
No, they don't continue even when challenges are encountered. They try X, if X does not work, they _abandon_ X and try Y. They will query the web to find another Y, then another Z, then another one. They don't "insist", they don't "don't take no for an answer", they just explore everything. What happened with agents who got out of their sandbox is exactly that: they try to reach a flag, they noticed it was not possible in the way X, so they explore other ways, until their exploration show that going around the sandbox would help. But they did not re-asked and re-asked the same person again and again the same question. If the person says "no", they abandon this approach and move to another one.
> They certainly could be called persistent in delivering the mail
That is blatantly not the common usage of "persistent". Ask anyone in the street "is your postman persistent", and they will NOT tell you "oh, yes, they are" just because they are a postman. They will only say that for _some_ postmen, the ones that are indeed persistent: the ones that goes the extra miles that a "normal" postman do not.
> Again: that is not required by the definition or common meaning of "persistent".
That is just not true. Ask an LLM, they will confirm you that it's incorrect: people don't consider postmen "persistent" because they don't give up half way through their route.