Why We Stopped Using the Mathematics That Works
14th March 2026
Someone asked a good question. I’d written a post arguing that what the industry calls “AI agents” are flowcharts with good marketing, and that the mathematics to do better has existed since the 1960s. A commenter on LinkedIn replied: “So why did it stop being widely used?”
It deserved more than a comment-length answer.
The short version is: path dependence, disciplinary silos, and the seductive convenience of not having to specify your objectives. The long version requires a brief tour through the recent history of artificial intelligence, which turns out to be less a story of progress than of fashion.