Levels of AI Agents: from Rules to Large Language Models
This provides a conceptual framework for researchers and practitioners to classify AI agents, but it is incremental as it adapts existing ideas from autonomous driving.
The paper tackles the problem of categorizing AI agents by proposing a 6-level framework inspired by autonomous driving levels, ranging from no AI to advanced agents with personality and collaboration.
AI agents are defined as artificial entities to perceive the environment, make decisions and take actions. Inspired by the 6 levels of autonomous driving by Society of Automotive Engineers, the AI agents are also categorized based on utilities and strongness, as the following levels: L0, no AI, with tools taking into account perception plus actions; L1, using rule-based AI; L2, making rule-based AI replaced by IL/RL-based AI, with additional reasoning & decision making; L3, applying LLM-based AI instead of IL/RL-based AI, additionally setting up memory & reflection; L4, based on L3, facilitating autonomous learning & generalization; L5, based on L4, appending personality of emotion and character and collaborative behavior with multi-agents.