An Economy of AI Agents

2025/09/01 by Gillian K. Hadfield, Andrew Koh, Hadfield, Gillian K. +1 · 12 voices · 10 citations
Computer Science · Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Artificial Intelligence Applications #Economic and Technological Innovation #Stock Market Forecasting Methods #cs.AI #cs.MA #econ.GN

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.01063

openalex publication_date 2025/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

In the coming decade, artificially intelligent agents with the ability to plan and execute complex tasks over long time horizons with little direct oversight from humans may be deployed across the economy. This chapter surveys recent developments and highlights open questions for economists around how AI agents might interact with humans and with each other, shape markets and organizations, and what institutions might be required for well-functioning markets.

Citations

• Training large language models on narrow tasks can lead to broad misalignment
• Utility Engineering: Analyzing and Controlling Emergent Value Systems in AIs
• Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI
• Affective Coherence Monitoring for Transformer-Based Language Models
• Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback
• On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models
• The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach

Cited by

• Legal Alignment for Safe and Ethical AI
• Distributional AGI Safety
• A Pragmatic View of AI Personhood
• The Illusion of Rationality: Tacit Bias and Strategic Dominance in Frontier LLM Negotiation Games
• When AI Agents Compete for Jobs: Strategic Capabilities and Economic Dynamics of AI Labour Markets
• Full-Stack Alignment: Co-Aligning AI and Institutions with Thick Models of Value
• Diagon: A Programmable Testbed for AI-Agent Cognitive Labor Markets
• The 2025 AI Agent Index: Documenting Technical and Safety Features of Deployed Agentic AI Systems
• Intelligent AI Delegation
• Virtual Agent Economies

Discussions

• An Economy of AI Agents [hn, 141 points, 97 comments]
• ⚡ Hackernews Top story: An Economy of AI Agents [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020096 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents arxiv.org/abs/2509.01063 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents https:// arxiv.org/abs/2509.01063 # ai # arxiv [mastodon, 0 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01063 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01063 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020096) [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• 最近、AIエージェントを使った経済システムについての議論が活発になっています。 このシステムでは、AIエージェントが人々の代わりに経済活動を担います。 例えば、商品を生産したり、サービスを提供したり、取引を行ったりする役割をAIが行うというものです。 まだ初期段階ですが、効率性や透明性の向上など、多くのメリットが期待されています。 一方で、雇用への影響や倫理的な問題点なども指摘されています。 ar [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01063 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020096) [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.01063 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• https://bsky.app/profile/buzzing.cc.web.brid.gy/post/3m6dzbrker7c2 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• An Economy of AI Agents [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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• Generative AI as Economic Agents
• Beyond the Sum: Unlocking AI Agents Potential Through Market Forces