Virtual conference on Zero/Minimal Intelligence Agents, October 22 – 24, 2020

 A remarkable 1993 JPE paper by Gode and Sunder showed that random bids and offers constrained only not to be money losing could converge in a sense to competitive equilibrium in double auction markets:

Allocative efficiency of markets with zero-intelligence traders: Market as a partial substitute for individual rationality

DK Gode, S Sunder - Journal of political economy, 1993 - journals.uchicago.edu

We report market experiments in which human traders are replaced by" zero-intelligence" programs that submit random bids and offers. Imposing a budget constraint (ie, not permitting traders to sell below their costs or buy above their values) is sufficient to raise the allocative efficiency of these auctions close to 100 percent. Allocative efficiency of a double auction derives largely from its structure, independent of traders' motivation, intelligence, or
learning. Adam Smith's invisible hand may be more powerful than some may have thought; it can generate aggregate rationality not only from individual rationality but also from individual irrationality.

In October, there's a conference following up on the idea that some market institutions may have desirable properties that don't depend on the rationality of the agents.

The First Conference on Zero/Minimal Intelligence Agents October 22 – 24, 2020

"Zero-intelligence (ZI) and Minimal-intelligence (MI) agents have provided valuable insights into how rules of engagement and institutional structures affect outcomes. This virtual conference is for sharing insights, findings, theories, applications, and tools regarding ZI and MI agents..."  

PROGRAM

(Revised September 3, 2020)

THURSDAY OCTOBER 22, 2020 (DAY 1)

Session 1: Zeroing in on zero-intelligence: Externalism, automaticity and opaqueness

(October 22, 2020, 9:00-10:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Dave Cliff

a. Enrico Petracca: Zero-intelligence in ‘externalist’ new institutional economics

b. Shaun Gallagher: Zero-intelligence and human automaticity at two extremes

c. Antonio Mastrogiorgio: Opaqueness as a mark of minimal-intelligence

Session 2: Trading with Zero/Minimal Intelligence

(October 22, 2020, 11:00-12:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Daniel Ladley

a. Dave Cliff: Extending Zero and Minimal Intelligence Trader Agents to Exhibit Size-Impact

Effects

b. Barbara Ikica, Simon Jantschgi, Heinrich H. Nax, Diego G. Nuñez Duran, Bary S. R. Pradelski:

Trading in a Black Box: Zero Intelligence and Lack of Knowledge

c. Fan Gao and Daniel Ladley: Endogenous network in OTC markets

Session 3: Panel Discussion on Structural Rationality

(October 22, 2020, 13:00-15:00 EDT New York, USA):

Moderator: Shyam Sunder

Robert Axtell, Gerd Gigerenzer, Doyne Farmer, Charles R. Plott,

Larry Samuelson

FRIDAY OCTOBER 23, 2020 (DAY 2)

Session 4: Agent-based Computational Economics and ZI/MI

Agents (October 23, 2020, 9:00-10:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Friederike Wall

a. Shu-Heng Chen: Less is More: Minimal Intelligence in the History of Cognitive Science

b. Stephan Leitner and Friederike Wall: Micro- and Macro-Dynamics in Hidden-Action

Relationships with Limited Information

c. Friederike Wall: Hill-Climbers or Satisficers? On the Intelligence of Managerial Search in

Agent-based Models

Session 5: Uncertainty and Experiments

(October 23, 2020, 11:00-12:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Heinrich H. Nax

a. Barbara Ikica, Peiran Jiao, Aidas Masiliūnas, and Heinrich Nax: From Skinner Box

experiments to Black Box games: radical behaviorism for experimental game theory

b. Michael Maier, Karim Jamal, and Shyam Sunder: Aggregation of Diverse Information with

Double Auction Trading among Minimally-Intelligent Algorithmic Agents

c. Deborah Olukan, Jonathan Ward, Nicolas Malleson and Jiaqi Ge: Agent-Based

Computational Economics: Heterogeneous Expectation Formation

Session 6: Algorithms and Markets

(October 23, 2020, 13:00-14:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Aleksandra Aloric

a. Edgardo Bucciarelli, Andrea Oliva: Notes on algorithmic research, aggregations in economic

theory, and the unilateralism of the induction principle

b. Dave Cliff, Methodological Mess-ups in Modelling Markets with Minimal-Intelligence

Agents

c. Robin Nicole, Aleksandra Alorić , and Peter Sollich: Fragmentation in trader preferences

among multiple markets: Market coexistence versus single market dominance

SATURDAY OCTOBER 24, 2020 (DAY 3)

Session 7: Aggregation Theory and Evidence

(October 24, 2020, 9:00-10:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Dan Gode

a. Florian Artinger, Nikita Kozodoi and Julian Runge: Predicting Revenues with the Multiplier

Heuristic

b. Yuji Aruka, Yoshihiro Nakajima, and Naoki Mori: The Minimum Heterogeneous Agent

Configuration to Realize the Future Price Time Series Similar to Any Given Spot Price Time

Series in the AI Market Experiment

c. D. K. Gode: Does the Shape of Extramarginal Demand and Supply Matter?

Session 8: Dynamic Models and Beauty Contest

(October 24, 2020, 11:00-12:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Rosemarie Nagel

a. Kenneth Lomas and Dave Cliff: Exploring Narrative Economics: Integrating (Near-) ZeroIntelligence Trader-Agents with Opinion Dynamics Models

b. Jess Ben-Habib, John Duffy and Rosemarie Nagel, How to Protect against Zero Intelligence:

Idiosyncratic Signals in Beauty Contest Games

Session 9: Software Platforms for ZI/MI Simulations

(October 24, 2020, 13:00-14:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Shabnam Mousavi

a. Paul Brewer: Introduction and Overview of the Econ1.Net Robot Trading Laboratory:

b. Shabnam Mousavi and Shyam Sunder: Market Net Organization

Session 10: Properties of Market Institutions (Organized by Shabnam Mousavi, October 24,

2020, 15:00-16:30 EDT New York, USA)

Moderator: Elena Asprouhova