Most 'AI Agents' Are Just If-Statements in a Trench Coat

In a recent article on Dev.to, James Anderson argues that many systems currently marketed as 'AI agents' are actually just deterministic pipelines disguised by complex terminology. He defines a true agent as a system that decides its own control flow at runtime, whereas most existing implementations follow a fixed, pre-designed path. Anderson highlights that while 'agentic' workflows may impress during demos, they often introduce unnecessary nondeterminism, high costs, and significant debugging challenges. He contends that developers should prioritize building robust, testable pipelines, reserving true autonomous agency only for tasks where the required steps cannot be predicted in advance. Ultimately, the author suggests that the industry should move away from the 'agent' hype and focus on building reliable, maintainable systems that prioritize production stability over the allure of autonomous-sounding architecture.