AI Agents & Economics

What does the presence of truly intelligent agents do to basic assumptions of economics?

Call to action: AI will completely transform the economy, its critical we ensure it serves its ultimate purpose: to increase the well-being of its living participants.

A brief talk drawing from various sources, and my own conjecture.

Transcript

1. AI Agents & Economics Implications, Speculations, and Risks “What does the presence of truly intelligent agents do to basic assumptions of economics?” Robin Ranjit Singh Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Pathway Intelligence Inc Now: Beyond Prediction to... Action!
2. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Factors of Production Land + Natural Resources Data Capital Compute, (Software?) Labour AI Agent as worker * Entrepreneur AI Agent as manager ** Owner AI Agent as a “numbered company” *** From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_market Management replacement: “Manna: Two Views of Humanity’s Future”, Brain 2003 “Now, with AI, we have capital that learns” -McKinsey The economics of artificial intelligence, McKinsey Quarterly X GPT = General Purpose Technology AI as the Next GPT: a Political-Economy Perspective, Trajtenberg 2018 https://www.nber.org/papers/w24245
3. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Employment Displacement Osbourne and Frey 2013: “Bottleneck Variables” “Frey and Osborne 2016 ... do not consider the implications of potential progress in these areas.” The Societal Implications of Deep Reinforcement Learning, Whittlestone 2021 Social and Affective Machine Learning, Jaques 2019 OpenAI MuseNet Generative models 2019 Solving Rubik's Cube with a Robot Hand, 2019 OpenAI
4. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Geopolitics AI Index 2021 Annual Report, Zhang et al 2021 https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.06312
5. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Agency Dilemma • Browser as “agent” ◦ Agent ownership + control ◦ facebook.com is not your friend ◦ Browsers don’t protect our interests in the Attention economy • Information asymmetry + Moral Hazard? ◦ Agent Providers have more information + control Economic patterns in a world with artificial intelligence, Wagner 2020 CONSUMER FIRM Consumer Agent Firm Agent Agent Provider Agent Provider Old market New market
6. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com AI & Economic Actors + Mechanisms ACTORS “Nature” Human Corporation / Organization Government AI Agent / Robot Category Living Living Abstract Abstract Abstract “Intelligent” “No” Yes Yes ** Debatable Yes Rights under law No Yes Yes Yes No (acts on behalf of other actors, just like any abstract actor) Can own property No Yes Yes Yes No Scales cheaply No No Somewhat NO Yes List of actors partially based on: Economic Actors and the Ultimate Goal of the Economy, Zsolnai 2018 MECHANISMS Voluntary Monetized Notes Aggressive No No Subordinate Bureaucratic No No Hierarchical Market Yes Yes Horizontal Ethical Yes No Altruism Family, Neighborhood Janos Kornai (1984, 1990, 1992) Risk: Centralized AI Accelerates Capitalism, Monetization, Reduces Voluntary coordination
7. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Solutions Agency dilemma • Regulation • Anti-trust enforcement • Technical Transparency • Open-source agents, Protocols, Marketplaces Geopolitics • Invest in Canadian AI ecosystem Actors + Mechanisms • Promote AI that advances Ethical Coordination • Promote rights for Nature • Promote Decentralized AI Awareness • Informed citizens -> Political pressure • Informed media -> Meaningful discussion • Informed policy makers -> Sensible policy • Informed economists -> Meaningful guidance Labour displacement • Universal Basic Income • Deep educational reforms • Education on demand
8. AI Agents & Economics, 2021 Robin Chauhan robin@pathwayi.com Thank you! Questions? Additional Primary Sources • The Economics of AI Conference, National Bureau of Economic Research • Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence Conference, Creative Destruction Lab, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto • The Societal Implications of Deep Reinforcement Learning, Whittlestone 2021 • Various sources for basic concepts in Economics