Artificial intelligence, algorithmic pricing, and collusion

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morganism
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Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 9:44 pm

Artificial intelligence, algorithmic pricing, and collusion

Post by morganism »

"This column uses experiments with pricing algorithms powered by AI in a controlled environment to demonstrate that even relatively simple algorithms systematically learn to play sophisticated collusive strategies. Most worrying is that they learn to collude by trial and error, with no prior knowledge of the environment in which they operate, without communicating with one another, and without being specifically designed or instructed to collude."

https://voxeu.org/article/artificial-in ... -collusion

"The collusion that we find is typically partial – the algorithms do not converge to the monopoly price but a somewhat lower one. However, we show that the propensity to collude is stubborn – substantial collusion continues to prevail even when the active firms are three or four in number, when they are asymmetric, and when they operate in a stochastic environment. The experimental literature with human subjects, by contrast, has consistently found that they are practically unable to coordinate without explicit communication save in the simplest case, with two symmetric agents and no uncertainty."
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