MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 63.03.01
Markets
Category: Collusion
Description
"Markets. The quintessential case of collusion in mixed-motive settings is markets, in which efficiency results from competition, not cooperation. While this is not a new problem, collusion between AI systems is especially concerning since they may operate inscrutably due to the speed, scale, complexity, or subtlety of their actions.17 Warnings of this possibility have come from technologists, economists, and legal scholars (Beneke & Mackenrodt, 2019; Brown & MacKay, 2023; Ezrachi & Stucke, 2017; Harrington, 2019; Mehra, 2016). Importantly, AI systems can collude even when collusion is not int
From Multi-Agent Risks from Advanced AI (Hammond2025), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).
Classification
- Subdomain
- 7.6 Multi-agent risks
- Causal entity
- AI
- Intent
- Intentional
- Timing
- Post-deployment
Subdomain definition: Risks from multi-agent interactions, due to incentives (which can lead to conflict or collusion) and/or the structure of multi-agent systems, which can create cascading failures, selection pressures, new security vulnerabilities, and a lack of shared information and trust.
How other frameworks describe this risk
- Groups of LLM-Agents May Show Emergent Functionality
- Multi-Agent Safety Is Not Assured by Single-Agent Safety
- Foundationality May Cause Correlated Failures
- Collusion between LLM-Agents
- Financial instability due to model homogeneity
- Multi-agent collusion propensity:
- Impact on Financial Stability
- Multi-agent collaboration capability