共享AI定价模型可能无意中导致价格串通,抬高消费者价格。
Supracompetitive Pricing Under AI Monoculture
- 用双寡头模型分析共享AI定价的稳定性,发现输出一致性过高会引发价格串通
- 当模型输出与实际价格对齐度超过临界值时,市场出现双稳态:可竞争也可高价
- 减少模型与卖家行为的匹配度,如换多个AI或加噪声,能防止价格串通
当多个卖家使用同一AI模型制定价格时,模型基于反馈进行性能更新,可能导致价格协同。我们构建了一个简化双寡头模型,其中共享AI有两个参数:倾向性(决定是否设高价)和输出保真度(反映倾向与实际输出的一致性)。随着定期重训练,倾向性被更新。研究发现,为模型追求稳健性和可复现性配置时,会因相变导致超竞争定价。当输出保真度低于临界值,竞争定价是唯一稳定结果;高于该值时,系统进入双稳态,既可能竞争也可能串通,最终结果取决于初始倾向性。完全对齐时,任意初始倾向性都会导致全面价格协调。对于有限训练批次大小$b$,若初始倾向性处于串通区域,随着$b$增大,串通概率趋近1,不确定区域以$O(1/\sqrt{b})$速率缩小。任何削弱模型倾向与实际定价对齐的因素——如更换不同AI提供商、引入推荐噪声或降低卖家服从度——均有助于回归竞争性定价。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
When competing sellers delegate pricing to a shared AI model, such as a large language model, correlated recommendations combined with performance-driven updates aggregating seller feedback raise a key question: can standard AI deployment practices inadvertently produce supracompetitive pricing? We develop a stylized duopoly model in which two sellers receive pricing recommendations from a shared AI characterized by two parameters: a propensity parameter capturing the model's tendency to set high prices and an output-fidelity parameter measuring alignment between this tendency and actual outputs, with propensity updated via periodic retraining on observed outcomes. We find that configuring AI models for robustness and reproducibility can lead to supracompetitive pricing via a phase transition. Below a critical output-fidelity threshold, competitive pricing is the unique stable outcome. Above it, the model exhibits bistability: both competitive and supracompetitive pricing are locally stable, with the realized outcome determined by the model's initial propensity. Supracompetitive pricing raises average prices, but occasional low-price recommendations complicate detection. With perfect output fidelity, full price coordination emerges from any interior initial propensity. For finite training batches of size $b$, when the initial propensity lies in the supracompetitive basin, the probability of supracompetitive pricing approaches 1 as $b$ increases, with the region of indeterminate outcomes shrinking at rate $O(1/\sqrt{b})$. Any factor reducing alignment between the model's propensity and sellers' actual pricing, whether through diversifying AI providers, introducing recommendation noise, or reducing seller adherence, pushes the market toward competitive outcomes.
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