Position: Toward a Theory of Agents as Tool-Use Decision-Makers

Hongru WANG, Cheng Qian, Manling Li, Jiahao Qiu, Boyang XUE, Mengdi Wang, Heng Ji, Kam-Fai Wong

Keywords: Autonomous Agent, Tool Use, Decision-making

TL;DR: A new theory of agent to reformulate it as tool-use decision-makers by unifying internal reasoning and external acting as two epistemically equivalent forms of tool use.

Abstract: As Large Language Models (LLMs) evolve into increasingly autonomous agents, fundamental questions about their epistemic foundations remain unresolved: What defines an agent? How should it make decisions? And what objectives should guide its behavior? In this position paper, we argue that true autonomy requires agents to be grounded in a coherent epistemic framework that governs what they know, what they need to know, and how to acquire that knowledge efficiently. We propose a unified theory that treats internal reasoning and external actions as equivalent epistemic tools, enabling agents to systematically coordinate introspection and interaction. Building on this framework, we advocate for aligning an agent’s tool use decision-making boundary with its knowledge boundary, thereby minimizing unnecessary tool use and maximizing epistemic efficiency. This perspective shifts the design of agents from mere action executors to knowledge-driven intelligence systems, offering a principled path toward building foundation agents capable of adaptive, efficient, and goal-directed behavior.

Submission Number: 594