Comment by alt227
2 months ago
Yes we are reading the same page, except you seem to be cherry picking comments and missing the main broader picture:
There are three main purposes that an operating system fulfills:
Operating systems allocate resources between different applications, deciding when they will receive central processing unit (CPU) time or space in memory.
Operating systems provide an interface that abstracts the details of hardware access
Operating systems provide common services, such as an interface for accessing network and disk devices.
LLMs will can not and will not ever do these things, and your idea that an OS will become a tiny thing like a BIOS is completely wrong.
If these things were true, an OS wouldnt need a BIOS by now, they would have merged into the same thing long ago. But they havent because they are distinct layers which require certain functionality performed before handing off to the next layer. This is why an LLM will never be an OS, and will always be an app that an OS hands off to.
Not cherry-picking, I quoted the entire first paragraph of the section titled "Definition and purpose."
> LLMs will can not and will not ever do these things
Once again, I am not claiming LLMs would replace an OS. This is a non sequitor, and I'm confused why you expect me to defend it.
Once again, I ask: Do you agree that Windows 11 is an OS? Android? UEFI? ChromeOS? At what point do they stop being an OS?
Language is fluid, evolves over time, and means different things to different people. To most people, an "operating system" refers to more than just the kernel. It refers to the entire system stack that defines how they interact with the computer (i.e. hardware and networking), how it manages resources (e.g. CPU and GPU time, memory), how they load software onto it (e.g. packages, APKs, .apps or MCP), and how that software is granted permissions to those resources (compare iOS/macOS/Android permission models to what people might want their LLMs to do), etc.
I expect to see a lot of changes in this area as a result of LLMs becoming more prominent in how people interact with computers. This is what I mean by an "Agent OS" - not an LLM replacing the kernel. That is clearly an absurd premise.