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Abstract - Agentic AIs Are the Missing Paradigm for Out-of-Distribution Generalization in Foundation Models
Foundation models (FMs) are increasingly deployed in open-world settings where distribution shift is the rule rather than the exception. The out-of-distribution (OOD) phenomena they face -- knowledge boundaries, capability ceilings, compositional shifts, and open-ended task variation -- differ in kind from the settings that have shaped prior OOD research, and are further complicated because the pretraining and post-training distributions of modern FMs are often only partially observed. Our position is that OOD for foundation models is a structurally distinct problem that cannot be solved within the prevailing model-centric paradigm, and that agentic systems constitute the missing paradigm required to address it. We defend this claim through four steps. First, we give a stage-aware formalization of OOD that accommodates partially observed multi-stage training distributions. Second, we prove a parameter coverage ceiling: there exist practically relevant inputs that no model-centric method (training-time or test-time) can handle within tolerance $\varepsilon$, for reasons intrinsic to parameter-based representation. Third, we characterize agentic OOD systems by four structural properties -- perception, strategy selection, external action, and closed-loop verification -- and show that they strictly extend the reachable set beyond the ceiling. Fourth, we respond to seven counterarguments, conceding two, and outline a research agenda. We do not claim that agentic methods subsume model-centric ones; we argue that the two are complementary, and that progress on FM-OOD requires explicit recognition of the agentic paradigm as a first-class research direction.
智能体AI:基础模型在分布外泛化中缺失的范式 /
Agentic AIs Are the Missing Paradigm for Out-of-Distribution Generalization in Foundation Models
1️⃣ 一句话总结
本文提出,面对基础模型在现实世界中遇到的多种未知变化(如知识边界、能力上限和任务组合变化),传统模型中心的方法存在根本性的处理上限,而引入具备感知、策略选择、外部行动和闭环验证能力的智能体系统,是突破这一局限、实现真正泛化的关键补充范式。