Within the company Hackathon This month, developers at financial company Block built dazzling prototype tools, including database debuggers, programs to identify duplicate code, and applications that automate Bitcoin-backed.

The sudden productivity gains are powered by Goose, an artificial intelligence agent developed by Block that can help with coding and other work, such as visualizing data or mocking new product features.

"We've been attacking the week, but that's another level," Jackie Brosamer said. "We have dozens of ideas that we want to bring into production."

Goose helps Block developers develop new proxy communications servers in hackathons. The company said Goose has changed the way it works, not only helping automate code generation, but also allowing non-engineers to get involved in coding or prototypes of new applications or features.

I first had a conversation with Block a few months ago when the goose was cooked less than it is now. The company's developers acknowledged that agents increased their output, but sometimes made mistakes (such as deleting odd files) (which can still happen). They run the system on the machine and can easily roll any changes back.

Agents are beginning to change the way many developers and companies operate as AI models get better at managing code, using computers, and wielding tools. Over the past week, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have all the touted proxy coding tools. Block uses human Claude models by default, which is particularly good at coding and tooling.

Block CEO Jack Dorsey and company’s chief technology officer Dhanji Prasanna concluded that agents will improve their industry in the fall of 2024, when improved AI models triggered a huge leap in performance for many agents. Dorsey and Prasanna think Block should build its own agents, and engineers and other employees should sneak in to use it first.

Block's Goose is available as open source (if you haven't guessed) inspired by Maverick's friends in the movie Top Cloud).

Goose can be powered by a range of different AI models and will run commands on the computer to access files and folders. Goose can also take advantage of an increasing number of online tools such as cloud storage platforms or online databases, thanks to the proxy communication model context protocol scheme developed by humans.

I used the latest version of Goose to slap some simple games and basic visualizations. It does a great job of handling tedious things, such as making sure you can use the correct Python version and install the packages. Other tools I've tried seem to be equally capable, but the Goose interface is particularly easy and intuitive, and it seems to become more powerful as it has access to other tools and services.