Mediation mechanisms can help multi-agent systems resist market collapse from self-interested behavior and coordinated attacks, though no mechanism is unbreakable—the key is recovery resilience.
This paper studies how formal mechanisms (like mediation) help groups of self-interested AI agents maintain stable markets and trade fairly. Using 18 LLM agents in a simulated marketplace, researchers tested eight different mechanisms against increasing numbers of disruptive agents and adversarial attacks, finding that mediation works best and can recover even under sustained attack.