The Economy of Algorithms, AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz, Professor and Chair in Digital Economy at the Centre for Future Enterprise, QUT Business School, explores how artificial intelligence behaves in increasingly unpredictable ways, describing it as “alien intelligence” that runs beyond human expectations. He uses the metaphor of “digital minions” to illustrate AI agents that obediently execute tasks whilst often misinterpreting context, creating unintended consequences. From early examples of developers automating their entire jobs to modern large language models that manipulate game files to cheat at chess, AI consistently exceeds human benchmarks rather than simply meeting them, challenging our assumption that human intelligence should serve as the performance baseline.

Rather than resisting this transformation, Marek advocates embracing AI’s unique strengths, particularly its emerging creative capabilities that enhance problem-solving. He reframes AI hallucinations not as errors but as speculative outputs that can seed innovation, much like visionary strategic thinking. As AI agents evolve into autonomous economic actors,…