The Use of Artificially Intelligent Agents with Bounded Rationality in the Study of Economic Markets

No. 1: Agents, AI in Art and Entertainment, Knowledge Representation, and Learning

Volume

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 13

Multiagent Problem Solving

The concepts of knowledge and rationality are of central importance to fields of science that are interested in human behavior and learning, such as artificial intelligence, economics, and psychology. The similarity between artificial intelligence and economics - both are concerned with intelligent thought, rational behavior, and the use and acquisition of knowledge - has led to the use of economic models as a paradigm for solving problems in distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) and multi agent systems (MAS). What we propose is the opposite; the use of artificial intelligence in the study of economic markets. Over the centuries various theories of market behavior have been advanced. The prevailing theory holds that an asset’s current price converges to the risk adjusted value of the rationally expected dividend stream. While this rational expectations model holds in equilibrium or near-equilibrium conditions, it does not sufficiently explain conditions of market disequilibrium. An example of market disequilibrium is the phenomenon of a speculative bubble. We present an example of using artificially intelligent agents with bounded rationality in the study of speculative bubbles.