No Harm Done #5: Agential Economics

Are AI agents becoming economic actors in their own right, or is "agential economics" just the latest reframing of an old story about markets and power? Join us for an evening exploring how autonomous systems, on-chain governance, and algorithmic decision-making are reshaping who, or what, gets to act as an economic agent. Three leading thinkers in platform economies, cryptoeconomics, and market strategy will share insights on decentralised governance, institutional regulation, and the economics of trust in automated systems, in a conversation co-hosted by Dermott McMeel.

Featured Speakers:
Ellie Rennie: Professor, RMIT University; Research Director, Metagov; Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society
Chris Berg: Professor of Economics, RMIT University; Co-Founder, RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub
Ben Dixon: Founder and CEO, Fonto

Back for another #NoHarmDone meetup: https://www.noharmdone.tech/

Our speakers will explore what it means for AI, blockchain networks, and autonomous systems to act as participants in markets and institutions, from governance, safety and the regulatory changes. Together they'll ask whether "agential economics" represents a genuine shift in economic theory, or a new vocabulary for pressures institutions have always faced, and what it means for organisations trying to make sense of who's really making the decisions. If banks don't hold your money, they hold your personal economic data, what happens if they become Economic Language Models (ELMs) akin to LLMs?

Biographies

Ellie Rennie is a Professor at RMIT University, with research projects spanning knowledge infrastructures, ecocapital and stablecoins. Her previous research examined the coordination of value in permissionless systems (including blockchain governance) using ethnographic methods. She is currently working on "artificial organisational intelligence" — whether organisations can make their knowledge, rules and practices machine-readable, which includes building tools that bring ethnographic practices into feedback loops with AI systems. She has also worked extensively on the topic of digital inclusion. Ellie is a Research Director within the international research network Metagov and an Associate Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

Prof Chris Berg is one of Australia’s most prominent voices for free markets and individual liberty, and a leading global authority on regulation, technological change, and civil liberties. He is the author of thirteen books, including Artificial Intelligence: A Classical Liberal Approach (Palgrave 2026), The New Technologies of Freedom (American Institute for Economic Research, 2020), Understanding the Blockchain Economy (Edward Elgar, 2019), and The Libertarian Alternative (Melbourne University Press, 2016). He has published more than 30 peer reviewed papers including papers in Management Science, Research Policy, the Journal of Institutional Economics, the Australian Journal of Political Science, and Trends in Anaesthesia and Critical Care. He has provided expert reports and given in person legal evidence on questions relating to social media, free speech, artificial intelligence and terrorist and violent extremist content.

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Ben Dixon is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fonto, the first company in the world to connect Consumer Data Right (CDR) daily transaction data to survey research and build deep longitudinal consumer profiles at an individual level. Ben brings more than two decades of leadership in research, consulting, and consumer data and analytics, having held senior roles at Nielsen, Kantar, and CEO of WPP AUNZ's Data Investment Management division. This depth of experience has given him a first-hand view of where traditional survey-based insights fall short, and the conviction to build something better. Fonto closes that gap - combining de-identified banking transaction data with survey responses to give brands and researchers a far more accurate picture of consumer behaviour than either data source could offer alone. He has spent the past three to four years deeply immersed in exploring the practical applications of CDR and is a passionate advocate for ensuring the regime delivers genuinely good outcomes for the consumers whose data underpins it.

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And Co-host for the evening, and leading the interactive / fun part is: 

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Dermott McMeel is a researcher and educator working at the intersection of emerging technologies, design, and the built environment. His research explores how technologies influence communication, information practices, organisational change, and the processes through which design and construction are conceived and delivered. His PhD and early publications examined communication, information and technology, with subsequent work addressing AI, blockchain, mobile technologies, virtual environments, ICT, and language in creative and collaborative practices.

His current research focuses on the cultural and political dimensions of emerging technologies, including AI, blockchain and robotics, and their relationship to waste reduction, capitalism and alternative economic systems and resilience. His work increasingly examines how technological systems distribute agency, power and control, and how decentralised, participatory and context-specific approaches might enable more adaptive forms of design and construction.

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