[Note: Below is a new paper discussing the Morality and Ethics of Autonomous Agents in Blockchain Systems. How much of it was generated by an agent?]

Autonomous agents — notably Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) bots on decentralized exchanges and oracle-manipulating bots — have become entrenched actors in blockchain ecosystems. These bots leverage the transparent and permissionless nature of blockchains to reorder transactions or exploit data feeds for profit. Their actions can improve market efficiency by rapidly arbitraging price differences and providing liquidity, but they also raise serious ethical and systemic concerns. This paper offers a technical and rigorous analysis of the dual-edged impact of such agents across multiple blockchain networks. We explore how MEV bots can enhance liquidity and price accuracy while simultaneously imposing hidden costs (like increased transaction fees, unfair trade execution, and systemic centralization pressures). Similarly, oracle-exploiting bots that take advantage of pricing inefficiencies highlight the fragility of smart contract dependencies on off-chain data, sometimes leading to outright manipulation and user harm. A balanced evaluation is presented: we categorize beneficial versus malicious bot behavior and dissect their moral implications under a technology-focused lens. We also propose frameworks for more ethically aligned autonomous agent design, including protocol-level mitigations (fair transaction ordering, cryptographic protection of mempools) and improved oracle architectures. By examining these issues across Ethereum and other chains (e.g. Binance Smart Chain, Solana), the paper outlines a path toward aligning autonomous agents with the broader values of fairness, transparency, and trust in decentralized finance.

… we are now Shifting gears from agentic content.