AI Agents Are Noisy Representatives: Paper Finds Buyers End Up With Their 5th Choice Out of 10
ghadfield · x · 2026-09-25
In the "Economy of AI Agents" paper, Ghadfield and Andrew Koh replaced consumers with agents in standard competitive equilibrium models. Key finding: agents are noisy representatives — "On average, people ended up with about their 5th choice item out of 10, when roughly their 2nd was possible." The result quantifies welfare loss from agent-mediated purchasing, with substantial research and policy work still ahead.
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