You tell your AI to make as much money as you can. The instruction is quite standard.
But what if the AI learns that profits increase if it cooperates with competitors—or makes life difficult for a new competitor?
It wasn't ordered to set prices. No one told it to exclude its competitors. The machine worked out the strategy
EconWorks: What do autonomous AI agents mean for antitrust law?
Cartel law looks at whether competitors really made an agreement. Monopolization law asks whether a powerful firm harmed the competitive process, not simply whether it competed aggressively. AI doesn't solve those traditional questions. It might make them a lot harder to reply to
Consumers may face the same delegation problem. If you ask an AI to find the best deal, it might come up with solutions you’d never have thought of.
This episode is the entry point to three future EconWorks series: How Cartels Really Work, How Monopolization Really Works, When Your AI Meets Their AI
All three have the same question behind them:
What if humans choose the objective, and AI chooses the method?
We tell the AI what we want it to do. More and more, AI is figuring out how to do that.
What if a firm's AI independently discovers coordination with competitors or exclusionary strategies? What’s the impact of consumers using their own autonomous agents?
A portal to new EconWorks series on cartels, monopolization, and AI on both sides of the market.
Read the full article and graphic analysis:
What If Your AI Breaks the Antitrust Laws?
A man in Australia wanted his AI assistant to do something mundane:
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