Generative AI as Economic Agents

Abstract

Traditionally, AI has been modeled within economics as a technology that impacts payoffs by reducing costs or refining information for human agents. Our position is that, in light of recent advances in generative AI, it is increasingly useful to model AI itself as an economic agent. In our framework, each user is augmented with an AI agent and can consult the AI prior to taking actions in a game. The AI agent and the user have potentially different information and preferences over the communication, which can result in equilibria that are qualitatively different than in settings without AI.