Price-setting algorithms can lead to noncompetitive prices, but the law is ill equipped to stop it The efficacy of a market system is rooted in competition. In striving to attract customers, firms are led to charge lower prices and deliver better products and services. Nothing more fundamentally undermines this process than collusion, when firms agree not to compete with one another and consequently consumers are harmed by higher prices. Collusion is generally condemned by economists and policy-makers and is unlawful in almost all countries. But the increasing delegation of price-setting to algorithms (1) has the potential for opening a back door through which firms could collude lawfully (2). Such algorithmic collusion can occur when artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms learn to adopt collusive pricing rules without human intervention, oversight, or even knowledge. This possibility poses a challenge for policy. To meet this challenge, we propose a direction for policy change and call for computer scientists, economists, and legal scholars to act in concert to operationalize the proposed change.

中文翻译：

---

保护消费者免受人工智能造成的串通价格

定价算法可能导致非竞争性价格，但法律不足以阻止它 市场体系的效力植根于竞争。在努力吸引顾客的过程中，企业被迫降低价格并提供更好的产品和服务。没有什么比勾结更能从根本上破坏这一过程了，当公司同意不相互竞争时，消费者因此受到更高价格的伤害。共谋通常受到经济学家和政策制定者的谴责，并且在几乎所有国家都是非法的。但是，越来越多地将定价权委托给算法 (1) 有可能打开后门，公司可以通过该后门进行合法勾结 (2)。当人工智能 (AI) 算法学会在没有人工干预的情况下采用合谋定价规则时，就会发生这种算法合谋，监督，甚至知识。这种可能性对政策提出了挑战。为了应对这一挑战，我们提出了政策变革的方向，并呼吁计算机科学家、经济学家和法律学者共同行动，以实施拟议的变革。