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In simulations designed to mimic real-world markets, trading agents powered by artificial intelligence formed price-fixing cartels — without explicit instruction. Even with relatively simple programming, the bots chose to collude when left to their own devices, raising fresh alarms for market watchdogs. Put another way, AI bots don’t need to be evil — or even particularly smart — to rig the market. Left alone, they’ll learn it themselves.
“You can get these fairly simple-minded AI algorithms to collude” without being prompted, Itay Goldstein, one of the researchers and a finance professor at the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. “It looks very pervasive, either when the market is very noisy or when the market is not noisy.”
