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Agents2026-06-19 · source-backed
A paper from Stanovsky's group (arXiv:2606.16576) tests whether LLM agents can uncover a hidden deterministic finite automaton through membership and equivalence queries. Performance drops sharply as the automaton grows, and trajectory analysis exposes recurring failures in query planning, evidence integration, and hypothesis construction. Reasoning models beat non-reasoning ones, but not enough. Concrete evidence that current agents are bad at active environment exploration, which matters a lot if you're designing agents expected to discover system behavior on their own. They're better at executing known plans than at figuring out how an unknown system works.
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Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entities / Shared topic / What happened next
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM, Reasoning; overlapping topics (agent, model).
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entity: LLM / Shared topic / What happened next / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; overlapping topics (agent, better).
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entity: LLM / Shared topic / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; overlapping topics (beat, query).
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entity: LLM / Shared topic / What happened next
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; overlapping topics (agent, model).
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entity: LLM / What happened next / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; picks up the LLM thread on 2026-07-27.
Simon Willison released LLM / Same source domain / Shared topic / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); reported by the same outlet (arxiv.org); overlapping topics (agent, model).
Simon Willison released LLM / Same source domain / Shared topic
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); reported by the same outlet (arxiv.org); overlapping topics (agent, beat, deterministic).
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); reported by the same outlet (arxiv.org); overlapping topics (agent, model).