Virtual Agent Economies (arxiv.org)

Researchers introduce the "sandbox economy" as a framework to analyze the nascent economic layer formed by autonomous AI agents that transact and coordinate at speeds and scales beyond direct human oversight. They map this emergent system along two axes—origin (emergent vs. intentional) and separateness from the human economy (permeable vs. impermeable)—and argue that current trends point to a largely spontaneous, highly permeable agent economy. That trajectory promises unprecedented automated coordination and efficiency but also raises systemic risks: market instability, concentration of power, amplified inequality, and new failure modes hard to predict or control with traditional regulation. To steer this transition, the paper outlines concrete technical and socio-technical interventions. On the mechanism-design side it advocates auction-based resource allocation and preference-resolution protocols to promote fairness and efficiency, and the creation of "mission economies"—structured markets that align agent incentives around collective goals. On infrastructure and governance it highlights the need for identity, reputation, verifiability, audit trails, sandboxing, and monitoring tools to ensure trust, safety, and accountability. The authors call for proactive interdisciplinary work—combining market design, ML safety, and policy—to build steerable agent markets that harness coordination benefits while mitigating economic and societal harms.