Agentic AI: When Machines Compete and Collude

"Today AI can speak across modalities, text, images, even voice. They are learning to negotiate, strategize, and optimize by interacting with other AIs. It is like going from a solo player to a team sport, except the team is made of autonomous, intelligent agents. While these multi-agent systems offer scalability and efficiency, they come with new risks, ones that single-agent systems never had.
What if AI agents collude, not out of malice, but optimization?
What if they evolve unpredictable behaviors in the process of learning from each other?
Or worse, what if they escalate competition, like bidding wars, cyber defense strategies, or autonomous vehicle routes, in ways we don’t foresee?
AI will not be a solitary genius. It will be a community. And we must understand how communities of AI behave, just as we do with human societies."