When AI Acts: Opportunities and Risks of Agentic Systems

Abstract

An agentic artificial intelligence (AI) marks a revolutionary new class of system that can perform, on its own, actions that are directed towards achieving some goals. In contrast to traditional reactive AI models, which simply respond to input, agentic systems comprehend their surroundings, reason strategically and can even work independently in a changing environment. Their birth is in line with the development of large language models, reinforcement learning and autonomous orchestration frameworks, which give machines the ability to plan and carry out tasks without the need for constant human intervention. This paper is about the issues connected with the agentic AI that make it so popular at this moment in time, the benefits brought by it and the hazards it causes. The possible uses extend from robotics and cybersecurity to finance and scientific discovery, where the capability of making decisions independently can open up the vast efficient use of time. However, the existence of these systems means the possibility of substantial risks, such as among others, misalignment, emergent behaviors, accountability gaps, and ethical uncertainties. The current article makes a detailed conceptualization framework for the comprehension of agentic AI: it specifies the features of the system, shows its track, considers the implications, and suggests the strategies for management, as well as, by providing the example of AutoGPT, tries to convey both the promise and the danger in the autonomous action of AI