MIT教授：AI监控定价能否让消费者受益？

SARAH HANSEN: So I have a question about models. So you put your professor hat on. So I've been hearing a lot about preference pricing, AI surveillance pricing. So I'd like you to explain what that means. But then also, what does that do to the basic economic model of supply and demand? JON GRUBER: Yep so at the heart of economics is a trade off between equity and efficiency. What I mean by that, a lot of-- basically, think of it as, how big is the pie versus how you slice up the pie?

And what determines the size of the pie is, can we make the best match between what people want and what gets produced is a key thing there. What algorithmic pricing does is it really improves that match because it lets me say, well, Sarah really likes this thing. And so I'm going to make sure that she gets it. And I'm going to charge her a higher price. But if I didn't charge a higher price, I might not make it. So let's say-- SARAH HANSEN: But that's such a benevolent way to think about it.

JON GRUBER: Let me finish. SARAH HANSEN: I feel like that's not true. JON GRUBER: It is true. So the thing is, if you don't want it, you don't have to buy it. SARAH HANSEN: But that's for things that I want. What about basic needs like buying milk for my child? I won't name the stores. But you can do online grocery shopping. And they clearly know what I buy and at what price I'm willing to buy it. And I went on a site like that.

And they wouldn't tell me my price until I added it to the cart. JON GRUBER: OK, that is a great example of why you can't just leave the free market alone. Here's a difficult question. You go online, and they say, aha, I know Sarah likes this. So I'm going to start raising the price of that thing to her. SARAH HANSEN: Yeah, that feels bad. JON GRUBER: It feels unfair. But then that comes the second issue, which is equity, which is what happens to that money they make from that.

Now if they take that money, and it goes to Jeff Bezos, that is unfair. But if Amazon is in a competitive marketplace-- we can go back to whether they are-- But imagine they were, then that money wouldn't go to Jeff Bezos. That would mean they'd charge less for something else. In a really competitive market, their profits are limited. So they're going to make money off you. They're going to make less money off someone else.

So that's a redistribution issue. That's not an efficiency issue. Now that's different if all the extra money goes to Jeff Bezos. And that's, once again, why we can't just leave the market alone, why you need a government involved to make sure that you have enough competition. But in a standard economic model, if we have algorithmic pricing, and people's prices better reflect their preferences, then that makes things more efficient.

The question is whether it makes things more equitable. SARAH HANSEN: And so how are economists thinking about this? Are they grappling with it? This is a fairly new thing. JON GRUBER: It's a fairly new thing. I think we're early to grappling with it. I think we are trying to think about essentially what you do when this becomes exploitative because of lack of information. That's one thing we need to think hard about, whether it leads to increased market failures because of monopolization of markets.

And so the money just goes to Jeff Bezos-- not to pick on him. But you know what I mean, and also, the fact that there's a fundamental inequity. So you're right. I made the good case. Let me do the opposite case. Let's say that you're well off. And you can shop from lots of options. So they know if they price high to Sarah here, Sarah's going to go over there and buy it. Now imagine a poor person in inner city who only has one store they can go to.

That store could then say, aha, I've used algorithm determination to decide this person has no car. They have nowhere else to go. I'm going to charge them a lot. SARAH HANSEN: Yeah, that's terrible. JON GRUBER: That is unfair. But that has to separate the efficiency from the fairness. And the proper role of society is to address both. [SQUEAKING] [RUSTLING] [CLICKING]