[2604.04906] How AI Aggregation Affects Knowledge

Economics > Theoretical Economics arXiv:2604.04906 (econ) [Submitted on 6 Apr 2026] Title:How AI Aggregation Affects Knowledge Authors:Daron Acemoglu, Tianyi Lin, Asuman Ozdaglar, James Siderius View a PDF of the paper titled How AI Aggregation Affects Knowledge, by Daron Acemoglu and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Artificial intelligence (AI) changes social learning when aggregated outputs become training data for future predictions. To study this, we extend the DeGroot model by introducing an AI aggregator that trains on population beliefs and feeds synthesized signals back to agents. We define the learning gap as the deviation of long-run beliefs from the efficient benchmark, allowing us to capture how AI aggregation affects learning. Our main result identifies a threshold in the speed of updating: when the aggregator updates too quickly, there is no positive-measure set of training weights that robustly improves learning across a broad class of environments, whereas such weights exist when updating is sufficiently slow. We then compare global and local architectures. Local aggregators trained on proximate or topic-specific data robustly improve learning in all environments. Consequently, replacing specialized local aggregators with a single global aggregator worsens learning in at least one dimension of the state. Comments: Subjects: Theoretical Economics (econ.TH); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computers and Society (cs.CY); Social and Inform...