Collective action problems

Collective action problems are ubiquitous in our society (Olson Jr, 1965). They possess an incentive structure in which society is best served if everyone cooperates, but where an individual can achieve personal gain by choosing to defect while others cooperate. The way we resolve these problems at many scales is highly complex and dependent on a deep understanding of the intricate web of social interactions that forms our culture and imprints on our individual identities and behaviours (Ostrom, 2010). Some collective action problems can be resolved by codifying a law, for instance the social dilemma of whether or not to pay for an item in a shop. The path forward here is comparatively easy to grasp, from the perspective of deploying an AI assistant: we need to build these standards into the model as behavioural constraints. Such constraints would need to be imposed by a regulator or agreed upon by practitioners, with suitable penalties applied should the constraint be violated so that no provider had the incentive to secure an advantage for users by defecting on their behalf. However, many social dilemmas, from the interpersonal to the global, resist neat solutions codified as laws. For example, to what extent should each individual country stop using polluting energy sources? Should I pay for a ticket to the neighbourhood fireworks show if I can see it perfectly well from the street? The solutions to such problems are deeply related to the wider societal context and co-evolve with the decisions of others. Therefore, it is doubtful that one could write down a list of constraints a priori that would guarantee ethical AI assistant behaviour when faced with these kinds of issues. From the perspective of a purely user-aligned AI assistant, defection may appear to be the rational course of action. Only with an understanding of the wider societal impact, and of the ability to co-adapt with other actors to reach a better equilibrium for all, can an AI assistant make more nuanced – and socially beneficial – recommendations in these situations. This is not merely a hypothetical situation; it is well-known that the targeted provision of online information can drive polarisation and echo chambers (Milano et al., 2021; Burr et al., 2018; see Chapter 16) when the goal is user engagement rather than user well-being or the cohesion of wider society (see Chapter 6). Similarly, automated ticket buying software can undermine fair pricing by purchasing a large number of tickets for resale at a profit, thus skewing the market in a direction that profits the software developers at the expense of the consumer (Courty, 2019). User-aligned AI assistants have the potential to exacerbate these problems, because they will endow a large set of users with a powerful means of enacting self-interest without necessarily abiding by the social norms or reputational incentives that typically curb self-interested behaviour (Ostrom, 2000; see Chapter 5). Empowering ever-better personalisation of content and enaction of decisions purely for the fulfilment of the principal’s desires runs ever greater risks of polarisation, market distortion and erosion of the social contract. This danger has long been known, finding expression in myth (e.g. Ovid’s account of the Midas touch) and fable (e.g. Aesop’s tale of the tortoise and the eagle), not to mention in political economics discourse on the delicate braiding of the social fabric and the free market (Polanyi, 1944). Following this cautionary advice, it is important that we ascertain how to endow AI assistants with social norms in a way that generalises to unseen situations and which is responsive to the emergence of new norms over time, thus preventing a user from having their every wish granted. AI assistant technology offers opportunities to explore new solutions to collective action problems. Users may volunteer to share information so that networked AI assistants can predict future outcomes and make Pareto-improving choices for all, for example by routing vehicles to reduce traffic congestion (Varga, 2022) or by scheduling energy-intensive processes in the home to make the best use of green electricity (Fiorini and Aiello, 2022). AI assistants might play the role of mediators, providing a new mechanism by which human groups can self-organise to achieve public investment (Koster et al., 2022) or to reach political consensus (Small et al., 2023). Resolving collective action problems often requires a critical mass of cooperators (Marwell and Oliver, 1993). By augmenting human social interactions, AI assistants may help to form and strengthen the weak ties needed to overcome this start-up problem (Centola, 2013).