Micro foundation for the development and prosperity of platform economy
Yi Xianrong
Generally speaking, the micro foundation of traditional economics is the assumption of the actor or economic man, that is, the rational behavior of man pursues the maximization of personal interests under the constraint conditions. This kind of rational behavior includes two connotations. One is that rational behavior often has a prescribed form, and how people act rationally in a given situation, that is, the prescribed motivation; The second is the possibility of using theoretical models to explain and predict actual behavior. Both general equilibrium theory and behavioral economics model are based on this assumption. However, these theoretical analyses are based on the traditional understanding of human nature and are subject to institutional constraints, information constraints and cognitive constraints.
In the era of big data, scientific and technological innovation and invention are changing human society at an unprecedented speed, breadth and depth, changing the cognitive model of human society and human behavior. At the same time, these scientific and technological innovations and applications have directly caused changes in some aspects of human itself and triggered changes in human nature. For example, the development of network technology, the development of infrastructure and the popularization of smart phones have fundamentally changed the way in which human individuals obtain information. In the pre big data era, human individuals can only passively accept the information selected by a few people from television and print media. In countries with backward economic development and pre modern politics, the vast majority of people can not even obtain the corresponding information, so the so-called rational behavior of people must be quite narrow or even irrational. However, in the era of smart phones, not only every smart phone is a terminal for collecting, obtaining and sending information, but also human individuals are not only passive recipients of information, and selectively and actively receive, collect and send information. This naturally expands the time and space of individual rational choice behavior in an all-round way. Individual choice behavior is more free, more active, more market-oriented, and of course, more rational. For example, the democratic, popular and inclusive nature of FinTech and the emergence of "Taobao Village" in rural China are classic cases. It can be said that these are the micro foundations of platform economy.
In addition, network technology and big data have also promoted the in-depth development of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence not only improves human's rational ability in an all-round way, but also can replace human's work and tasks in computing, learning, searching, analysis, processing, management and other ways that are difficult for many people's intelligence to complete, such as intelligent transactions in financial markets, data processing on network platforms, data analysis of machine equipment, and even chess playing and artistic creation, Moreover, AI is also relatively and indirectly changing people's status, cognitive style and psychological state, reflecting great potential. such as AlphaGo Zero Under the condition of mastering the basic rules of Go, he learned the existing chess manual through intelligence, and finally became the top player who won the human chess game. This event not only means that professional technical work and the completion of high intelligent positions may be replaced by artificial intelligence, but also means that the rational status of human beings has declined relatively. And the brain - Artificial devices, including computer interfaces, also change people's cognitive style and the source of human experience, that is, human sense and rationality can be obtained through artificial devices in addition to human biological organs.
It is in this sense that scientific and technological innovation in the era of artificial intelligence and big data is making people's rational cognitive ability expand in breadth and depth, and overcoming the information constraints and cognitive constraints of traditional economics. For example, changing the bounded rationality of actors and the asymmetry and incompleteness of information in the traditional economy is challenging the information completeness of artificial intelligence. For example, At present, the rapidly developing intelligent finance (including intelligent investment consultants, high-frequency trading in the securities market, algorithmic trading, program trading, robot trading, etc.) hopes that intelligent machines can become investment masters with huge brain capacity and extraordinary computing power by learning a lot of historical and real-time economic data, strategies, research reports, etc. hedge fund Aidya The developed automatic trading robot hopes to adapt itself to the rapidly changing trading market without manual guidance or intervention. In addition to price data and technical graphic analysis, the intelligent system fully studies the existing data, gathers news reports, basic factors and economic data in different languages, as well as prices and trading volumes in many other markets, synthesizes various materials, passes complex calculations, and finally combines them into a model to predict and invest in the future price trends of individual stocks. That is to say, the collection, storage, analysis, processing and application of massive data through artificial intelligence technology is overcoming the obstacles of incomplete and asymmetric credit, allowing people's rationality and cognition to expand, extend and deepen, which not only comprehensively improves people's rational ability, but also changes the cognition and preference of behavior subjects, and changes the utility choice of people's rational behavior. It is the most important aspect that platform economy has great advantages over traditional economy.
On the other hand, through network technology, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and big data, the events, objects and causes faced by actors are transformed into the digital world, and on this basis, new trading tools and new resource allocation methods are created, so as to achieve the impersonality, objectivity, disintermediation of resource allocation, and the tendency to information completeness and accuracy of information utilization, The behavior choice of human is completely replaced by computer program, and the economic choice behavior has entered the "algorithm era". For example, the transaction activities of Alipay, WeChat payment and all enterprise platforms can be completed instantly and optimally by using the platform's algorithm program through the Internet. The reason why consumers can complete various transactions in a timely, appropriate and appropriate manner is through different ways The application interface is realistic. Here, although these computer algorithm programs are basically separated from human rational choice behavior, these algorithm programs are also the extension of human rational choice behavior, which is the prepositional presupposition of human rational behavior with algorithm language, which has also changed human cognition, preference and utility choice.
For example, with the emergence of various sharing platforms, consumers' concept of ownership of goods has begun to fade. The goods they consume do not depend on who is the owner, but on who is using them and how to use them. This is changing people's consumption preference and lifestyle. This is the core of platform economy. All platform trading activities and interactions are computer algorithm programs and thousands of Application Interface To complete. Therefore, it is not conducive to the innovation and prosperity of the platform economy to analyze the anti-monopoly of the platform economy only with traditional economic theories and theoretical models.
It can be seen that in the era of big data and artificial intelligence, the human nature foundation of microeconomics has undergone tremendous changes. In essence, it has comprehensively expanded The time and space of human individual rational choice behavior makes human rational choice behavior more free, more active and more market-oriented. It is also overcoming the information constraints and cognitive constraints of traditional economics, starting to trend towards information completeness, and is The choice of human behavior is replaced by computer programs, and the choice of economic behavior enters the "algorithm era". Therefore, in the algorithm era of platform economy, to rectify the order of the platform economy, ensure the healthy development of the platform economy, and carry out anti-monopoly on the platform economy, traditional economic theories and laws and regulations may not adapt to new behavior choices, but it is necessary to conduct more in-depth research and understanding of the new economic methods of this algorithm, Only in this way can we find the problems and drawbacks of the platform economy and find a real solution.
