Artificial intelligence has moved beyond simply answering questions and generating text. A new generation of AI systems—known as AI agents—is emerging with the ability to plan tasks, use tools, make decisions, and complete multi-step workflows with less human intervention. From managing emails and analyzing data to writing software and assisting customers, AI agents could significantly change how people work. What Are AI Agents? An AI agent is a software system that can perceive information, reason about a goal, take actions, and adapt based on the results. Traditional AI tools usually respond to a specific instruction. For example, you might ask an AI chatbot to summarize a document, and it provides a summary. An AI agent can go further. You could give an agent a goal such as: "Research three competitors, compare their pricing, summarize their main features, and prepare a report." The agent may then: 1) Understand the objective. 2) Break the task into smaller steps. 3) Searc...
STREAMS ( Optional )
* The streams method in UNIX gives a bi-directional pipeline between a user process and a device driver, onto which additional modules can be added.
* The user process conveys with the stream head.
* The device driver interconnects with the device end.
* Zero or additional stream modules can be pushed onto the stream, using ioctl( ). These modules may filter and/or edit the data as it passes through the stream.
* Every module has a read queue and a write queue.
* Flow control can be permissively supported, in which case each module will buffer data until the adjacent module is ready to receive it. Without flow control, data is moved along as soon as it is ready.
* User processes communicate with the stream head using neither read( ) and write() ( or putmsg( ) and getmsg( ) for message passing. )
* Streams I/O is asynchronous ( non-blocking ), other than for the interface between the user process and the stream head.
* The device driver must reply to interrupts from its device - If the adjacent module is not prepared to accept data and the device driver's buffers are all full, then data is typically dropped.
* Streams are mostly used in UNIX, and are the preferred approach for device drivers. For example, UNIX executes sockets using streams.