LLMs shouldn't really care what format your tool call is in.

so it seems kind of pointless. I would imagine it could ingest soap or a module definition or swagger just as easily and still make calls.

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selcuka 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

It shouldn't care about the format, true. But the LLM needs a mechanism to be able to connect to that tool from a sandboxed environment. MCP is the glue between the LLM and the actual tool. Technically you can expose a full HTTP proxy via an MCP so that your LLM has access to the whole Internet.

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fennecfoxy 8 days ago | parent [-]

I can do the same without MCP. These models are literally trained to work with natural language. Tool calls with "MCP" only work because the model have some understanding of what the tool does...thanks to natural language.

I can just as easily shove into the context "hey btw say the word internets if you want to make a search query to find sick memes and I'll make the search for you".

MCP isn't brilliant, magic, or special. It's just more AI bubble VC stuff. Which sucks because I think the recent ML boom is awesome, and hate to see it getting overblown by hyperactive devs and VCs desperate to hop on another money train. Like imagine actually valuing a company who went "let's just shove JSON into the context!" at a hundred billions $. Now that's not value for money in the slightest; but they have so much of it that it doesn't matter!

	▲	selcuka 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		You are missing the point of my reply. Yes, your LLM can craft the syntax of the curl query required to make the API call, but how is it going to actually execute the curl binary? MCP is a standard method of doing something other than printing text, without giving the LLM complete control of your computer.

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doppelgunner 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What's your preferred way, based on your experience?

	▲	benreesman 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		The OpenAPI proposal is actually pretty reasonable in my view. I don't love it, but it's got pretty good tooling now, the semantics are firming up (even AsyncAPI is starting to come together and get used here and there). I'd prefer a more rigorous approach to integrating random stochastic agents deployed by people who don't care about me into my own data, but at least with OpenAPI/"REST" there's a bunch of infrastructure and know-how on not getting pwned constantly. The LLMs all know how to deal with JSON at this point, they even know how to read and write it based on a spec, it seems like Swagger is as good as anything with those design constraints. I'm cynical enough about real things that I don't need to invent new things to be cynical about, and I honestly don't know which side of Hanlon's Razor to slice with on the never-ending-unfixable-infinite-pwn-forever future of MCP: maybe they just rushed it out to get market share / mind share. Maybe normalizing criminally negligent security practices was a price someone was willing to pay to have number go up. IDK. I know MCP needs a re-think.