We do have some models of [boundedly] rational principals with perfectly rational agents, and those models don’t display huge added agency rents. If you want to claim that relative intelligence creates large agency problems, you should offer concrete models that show such an effect.
The conclusions of those models seem very counterintuitive to me. I think the most likely explanation is that they make some assumptions that I do not expect to apply to the default scenarios involving humans and AGI. To check this, can you please reference some of the models that you had in mind when you wrote the above? (This might also help people construct concrete models that they would consider more realistic.)
Robin, I’m very confused by your response. The question I asked was for references to the specific models you talked about (with boundedly rational principals and perfectly rational agents), not how to find academic papers with the words “principal” and “agent” in them.
Did you misunderstand my question, or is this your way of saying “look it up yourself”? I have searched through the 5 review papers you cited in your blog post for mentions of models of this kind, and also searched on Google Scholar, with negative results. I can try to do more extensive searches but surely it’s a lot easier at this point if you could just tell me which models you were talking about?
Note that all three of the linked paper are about “boundedly rational agents with perfectly rational principals” or about “equally boundedly rational agents and principals”. I have been so far unable to find any papers that follow the described pattern of “boundedly rational principals and perfectly rational agents”.
You previously wrote:
The conclusions of those models seem very counterintuitive to me. I think the most likely explanation is that they make some assumptions that I do not expect to apply to the default scenarios involving humans and AGI. To check this, can you please reference some of the models that you had in mind when you wrote the above? (This might also help people construct concrete models that they would consider more realistic.)
The literature is vast, but this gets you started: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=%22principal+agent%22&btnG=
Robin, I’m very confused by your response. The question I asked was for references to the specific models you talked about (with boundedly rational principals and perfectly rational agents), not how to find academic papers with the words “principal” and “agent” in them.
Did you misunderstand my question, or is this your way of saying “look it up yourself”? I have searched through the 5 review papers you cited in your blog post for mentions of models of this kind, and also searched on Google Scholar, with negative results. I can try to do more extensive searches but surely it’s a lot easier at this point if you could just tell me which models you were talking about?
If you specifically want models with “bounded rationality”, why do add in that search term: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&as_vis=1&q=bounded+rationality+principal+agent&btnG=
See also:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geer.12111
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/4/3/508
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=miami153299521737861&disposition=inline
Note that all three of the linked paper are about “boundedly rational agents with perfectly rational principals” or about “equally boundedly rational agents and principals”. I have been so far unable to find any papers that follow the described pattern of “boundedly rational principals and perfectly rational agents”.