Comment by closewith
4 days ago
Agent is clear in that it acts on behalf of the user.
"LLM feedback loop systems" could be to do with training, customer service, etc.
> Agent is like Retina Display to my ears, at least at this stage!
Retina is a great name. People know what it means - high quality screens.
>Agent is clear in that it acts on behalf of the user.
Yes, but you could say that AI orchestrated workflows are also acting on behalf of the user and the "Agentic AI" people seem to be going to great lengths to distinguish AI Agents from AI Workflows. Really, the only things that distinguish the AI Agent is the "running the LLM in a loop" + the LLM creating structured output.
> Really, the only things that distinguish the AI Agent is the "running the LLM in a loop" + the LLM creating structured output.
Well, that UI is what makes agent such an apt name.
Retina Display means nothing. Just because Apple pushed hard to make it common to everyone it doesn’t mean it’s a good technical name.
You’re right that it’s branding, but it also has meaning: a display resolution that (approximately) matches the resolution of the human retina, under typical viewing conditions. The fact that the term is easily understood by the lay public is what makes it a good name and smart branding. BTW the term ‘retinal display’ existed long before Apple used it, and refers to a display that projects directly onto the retina.
A screen that directly projects onto the retina sounds like a great reason to call it a retinal display. So then Apple hijacking the term to mean high DPI... how does that fit in?
There's not that many results about this before Apple's announcement in 2010, many of them reporting on science and not general public media: https://www.google.com/search?q=retinal+display&sca_esv=3689... Clearly not something anyone really used for an actual (not research grade) display, especially not in the meaning of high DPI
This isn't an especially easily understood term: that it means "good" would have been obvious no matter what this premium brand came up with. The fact that it's from Apple makes you assume it's good. (And the screens are good)
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You can argue that Apple haven't achieved it, but it has a very clear technical meaning - a sufficiently high dpi such that pixels become imperceptible to the average healthy human eye from a typical viewing distance.
> [retina] it has a very clear technical meaning
Retina does not mean that, not even slightly or in connotation
Even today, no other meanings are listed: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retina
It comes from something that means "net-like tunic" (if you want to stretch possible things someone might understand from it): https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/retina
They could have named it rods and cones, cells, eye, eyecandy, iris, ultra max, infinite, or just about anything else that isn't negative and you can still make this comment of "clearly this adjective before »screen« means it's high definition". Anything else is believing Apple marketing "on their blue eyes" as we say in Dutch
> imperceptible to the average healthy human eye from a typical viewing distance
That's most non-CRT (aquarium) displays. What's different about high DPI (why we need display scaling now) is that they're imperceptible even if you put your nose onto them: there's so many pixels that you can't see any of them at any distance, at least not with >100% vision or a water droplet or other magnifier on the screen
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> Retina Display means nothing.
It means a high-quality screen and is named after the innermost part of the eye, which evokes focused perception.
> Just because Apple pushed hard to make it common to everyone it doesn’t mean it’s a good technical name.
It's an excellent technical name, just like AI agent. People understand what it means with minimal education and their hunch about that meaning is usually right.