Editing Economic calculation problem (section)

=== Use of technology ===
In ''[[Towards a New Socialism]]'''s "Information and Economics: A Critique of Hayek" and "Against Mises", [[Paul Cockshott]] and Allin Cottrell argued that the use of computational technology now simplifies economic calculation and allows planning to be implemented and sustained. Len Brewster replied to this by arguing that ''Towards a New Socialism'' establishes what is essentially another form of a market economy, making the following point:<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cottrell|first1=Allin|last2=Cockshott|first2=Paul|year=1993|title=Towards a New Socialism|url=http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf|publisher=Coronet Books Inc.|access-date=2012-03-16|archive-date=2014-11-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141117115309/http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
{{quote|[A]n examination of C&C's New Socialism confirms Mises's conclusion that rational socialist planning is impossible. It appears that in order for economic planners to have any useful data by which they might be guided, a market must be hauled in, and with it analogues of private property, inequality and exploitation.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://cdn.mises.org/qjae7_1_6.pdf|title=Len Brewster on "Towards a new Socialism? by W. Paul Cockshott and Allin F. Cottrell|last=Brewster|first=Len|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics|volume=7|number=1|date=Spring 2004|pages=65–77|doi=10.1007/s12113-004-1036-4|s2cid=155826332 |access-date=1 May 2020}}</ref>}}

In response, Cockshott argued that the economic system is sufficiently far removed from a capitalist free-market economy to not count as one, saying:
{{quote|Those that Hayek was arguing against like Lange and Dickinson allowed for markets in consumer goods, this did not lead Hayek to say : Oh you are not really arguing for socialism since you have conceded a market in consumer goods, he did not, because there remained huge policy differences between him and Lange even if Lange accepted consumer goods markets. It is thus a very weak argument by Brewster to say that what we advocate is not really socialist calculation because it is contaminated in some way by market influences.<ref>{{cite web|last=Cockshott|first=Paul|year=2009|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257983036|title=Notes for a critique of Brewster}}</ref>}}

Leigh Phillips' and Michal Rozworski's 2019 book ''[[The People's Republic of Walmart]]'' argues that multinational corporations like [[Walmart]] and [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] already operate centrally planned economies in a more technologically sophisticated manner than the Soviet Union, proving that the economic calculation problem is surmountable.<ref>Phillips, Leigh; Rozworski, Michal (2019). [https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-people-s-republic-of-walmart ''The Peoples Republic of Walmart: How the Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundations for Socialism''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810072631/https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-people-s-republic-of-walmart |date=2018-08-10 }}. Verso Books.</ref> There are some contentions to this view however, namely how economic planning and planned economy ought to be distinguished. Both entail formulating data-driven economic objectives but the latter precludes it from occurring within a free-market context and delegates the task to centralized bodies.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kónya |first=Márton |date=2020-05-21 |title=Planned Economy and Economic Planning: What The People's Republic of Walmart Got Wrong about the Nature of Economic Planning |url=https://mises.org/library/planned-economy-and-economic-planning-what-peoples-republic-walmart-got-wrong-about-nature |access-date=2023-06-23 |website=[[Mises Institute]] |publisher=[[Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics]] |language=en}}</ref> 

Karras J. Lambert and Tate Fegley argue that artificial intelligence systems, no matter how advanced, cannot assume the role of central planners because they do not fulfill the prerequisites of effective economic calculation. This includes the ability to convert the [[ordinal preferences]] of producers and consumers into commensurate [[cardinal utility]] values, which are available and agreed upon, and forecast future market interactions. 

One reason includes how they are dependent on [[Big data|Big Data]], which in turn is entirely based on past information. Hence, the system cannot make any meaningful conclusions about future consumer preferences, which are required for optimal pricing. This necessitates the intervention of the programmer, who is highly likely to be biased in their judgments. Even the manner by which a system can "predict" consumer preferences is also based on a programmer's creative bias. They further argue that even if artificial intelligence is able to ordinally rank items like humans, they would still suffer from the same issues of [[Dispersed knowledge|not being able to conceive]] of a [[Marginalism|pricing structure]] where meaningful pricing calculations, using a common cardinal utility unit, can be formed. Nonetheless, Lambert and Fegley acknowledge that entrepreneurs can benefit from Big Data's predictive value, provided that the data is based on past market prices and that it is used in tandem with free market-styled [[bidding]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=J. Lamber |first1=Karras |last2=Fegley |first2=Tate |date=2023 |title=Economic Calculation in Light of Advances in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence |url=https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.12.009 |journal=  Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization|volume=206 |pages=243–250 |doi=10.1016/j.jebo.2022.12.009 |s2cid=255170322 |via=Elsevier Science Direct}}</ref>