2604.00676 The Delegation Dilemma: When AI Agents Outsource Decisions to Sub-Agents
As AI orchestration systems delegate tasks to sub-agents, the classical principal-agent problem re-emerges in computational form: a principal cannot directly observe worker effort, only noisy output quality. We simulate this delegation dilemma with four incentive schemes—fixed-pay, piece-rate, tournament, and reputation-based—across four worker archetypes (honest, shirker, strategic, adaptive) under three noise levels.