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10.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Unlike the usual articles on IoE, which deal with a specific application of
IoE, this chapter provides a panoramic view of IoE in economic theory, spe-
cifically, across the history of economic analysis. Reviewing the history of
economic analysis in the light of developments in mathematics, physics,
and machines has become a unique approach in economics. In that direc-
tion, this chapter can be regarded as a continuation of the intellectual inquiry
initiated by Philip Mirowski (Mirowski, 2002, 2007).
Our inquiry has been carried out at both the macro and micro level. At
the macro level, we explored the possibility of the unmanned markets as the
continuation of the socialist calculation debate, while in the context of IoE,
and at the micro level, we address the rationality or irrationality of individ-
uals in economics under IoE. The two inquiries are closely related because
the unmanned markets are largely built upon the automated decisions for
individuals. Hence, these automated decisions, to some extent, determine
the performance of the unmanned markets. 11 When automated decisions
take place on a large scale, the individuals’ decisions are facilitated not just
by pens and pencils, abacuses, decision-support systems, or high-
performance computing, but also by ubiquitous networking (IoE). With this
“extended (augmented) mind,” would these individuals (cyborgs) behave
more like homo economicus? Or, alternatively, would the prediction of
Richard Thaler be affected by the presence of IoE?
In this chapter, we addressed the plausible models of individuals in eco-
nomic theory, when these individuals become part of the IoE economy.
This issue seems to be particularly relevant since in neoclassical economics
decision makers have long been treated as information-processing units.This
notion was already formalized when decision sciences and economics were
fully integrated in von Neumann and Morgenstern’s collaborative mag-
num opus, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Von Neumann &
Morgenstern, 1944), and was further strengthened when statistics also
adopted a decision-making ontology and a game-theoretic methodology
(Savage, 1954). The later rational expectations revolution in the 1970s and
1980s had pushed the concept of the information-processing unit to
unprecedentedly high ground, probably achieving the golden age of homo
economicus. However, this portrait has long worried psychologists and

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This issue has already triggered a very active research area, at least in the domain of financial markets
(Lewis, 2014; Patterson, 2012).