CS+Law
Research Workshop

When: Third Friday of each month at 1 PM Central Time (sometimes fourth Friday; next workshop: Friday, March 21, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time) 

What: First 90 minutes: Two presentations of CS+Law works in progress or new papers with open Q&A. Last 30 minutes: Networking.

Where: Zoom

Who: CS+Law faculty, postdocs, PhD students, and other students (1) enrolled in or who have completed a graduate degree in CS or Law and (2) engaged in CS+Law research intended for publication.

A Steering Committee of CS+Law faculty from Berkeley, Boston U., U. Chicago, Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, North Carolina Central, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn, Technion, and UCLA organizes the CS+Law Monthly Workshop. A different university serves as the chair for each monthly program and sets the agenda.

Why: The Steering Committee’s goals include building community, facilitating the exchange of ideas, and getting students involved. To accomplish this, we ask that participants commit to attending regularly.

Computer Science + Law is a rapidly growing area. It is increasingly common that a researcher in one of these fields must interact with the other discipline. For example, there is significant research in each field regarding the law and regulation of computation, the use of computation in legal systems and governments, and the representation of law and legal reasoning. There has been a significant increase in interdisciplinary research collaborations between researchers from CS and Law. Our goal is to create a forum for the exchange of ideas in a collegial environment that promotes building community, collaboration, and research that helps to further develop CS+Law as a field.

Workshop 32: Friday, March 21, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time 

Please join us for our next CS+Law Research Workshop online on Friday, March 21, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Chicago Time).

Workshop 32 Organizers: Harvard (Yannai A. Gonczarowski) and Tel Aviv University (Inbal Talgam-Cohen)

Agenda:

20-minute presentation - Ran Shorrer

10-15-minute discussion - Thibault Schrepel

5-minute Q&A

20-minute presentation - Aaron Roth

10-15-minute discussion – Salil Mehra

5-minute Q&A

15-minute open Q&A about both presentations

30-minute open discussion

Presentation 1: Algorithmic Collusion by Large Language Models

Presenter: Ran Shorrer, Associate Professor of Department of Economics at the Pennsylvania State University

Abstract: 

The rise of algorithmic pricing raises concerns of algorithmic collusion. We conduct experiments with algorithmic pricing agents based on Large Language Models (LLMs). We find that (1) LLM-based agents are adept at pricing tasks, (2) LLM-based pricing agents autonomously collude in oligopoly settings to the detriment of consumers, and (3) variation in seemingly innocuous phrases in LLM instructions ("prompts") may increase collusion. Novel off-path analysis techniques uncover price-war concerns as contributing to these phenomena. Our results extend to auction settings. Our findings uncover unique challenges to any future regulation of LLM-based pricing agents, and black-box pricing agents more broadly.

Discussion by Thibault Schrepel, Associate Professor of Law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Amsterdam Law & Technology Institute), and a Faculty Affiliate at Stanford University (CodeX Center)

Presentation 2: Algorithmic Collusion Without Threats

Presenter: Aaron Roth, Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania computer science department

Abstract: 

Fair competition demands that sellers do not collude with each other in setting prices. But what does this mean? Prior work has shown that two sellers can set supra-competitive prices and gain supra-competitive revenue by either encoding threats in their behavior, or by not optimizing their own payoffs. Moreover, reinforcement learning algorithms can learn such threat strategies on their own.

Here we show that supra-competitive prices can arise in seemingly innocuous settings, when no threats are being encoded, and each agent is playing optimally. In our model each of the two agents sets a price for a good at each point in time, and the agent setting the lower price sells the good. We show that if one of the agents uses a no-regret algorithm to set prices, and the other approximately best responds, then both agents can get close to monopolistic profits, rather than the near-zero profit they should get under perfect competition. This suggests that it is non-trivial to define collusion in the age of algorithmic agents.

Discussion by Salil Mehra, Professor of Law at the Beasley School of Law, Temple University

Join us to get meeting information

Join our group to get the agenda and Zoom information for each meeting and engage in the CS+Law discussion.

Interested in presenting?

Submit a proposed topic to present. We strongly encourage the presentation of works in progress, although we will consider the presentation of more polished and published projects.

2024-25 Series Schedule

Friday, September 20, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: Northwestern)

Friday, October 18, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: UC Berkeley)

Friday, November 15, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: University of Chicago)

Friday, January 17, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: UPenn)

Friday, February 21, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: Cornell)

Friday, March 21, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: Tel Aviv University + Harvard)

Friday, April 18, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: TBD)

Friday, May 16, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Central Time (Organizer: Georgetown)

Background - CS+Law Monthly Workshop

Northwestern Professors Jason Hartline and Dan Linna convened an initial meeting of 21 CS+Law faculty at various universities on August 17, 2021 to propose a series of monthly CS+Law research conferences. Hartline and Linna sought volunteers to sit on a steering committee. Hartline, Linna, and their Northwestern colleagues provide the platform and administrative support for the series.