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Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

stripe.com

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Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

#22

Post by seanmcau »

XzAeRosho wrote: post #18
danlitt wrote: post #11

What does this actually have to do with agents? What does the protocol include that makes this useful with AI rather than just a boring old program?

There's a slightly new topic called Agentic Commerce, where you say for example: "purchase for me the most energy efficient dishwasher with a budget of $600", and the agent will connect via specialized via special MCP Servers and APIs to available stores, and will do the full purchase process for you. This MPP helps bridge the gap between the agent putting the product "in the basket", to actually completing the full…

I'm probably overlooking something, but what makes the problem of being able to get from item in basket to item is shipping different from choosing which item(s) to put in the basket?

In other words, if Agents are able to navigate marketplaces, shouldn't that imply they can also navigate a subset of the marketplace, the payment section? Especially given that that section is "easier: theres no need for qualitative (or quantitative) judgement like there is for the shopping portion.

Perhaps its a matter of proper safeguards?

Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

#23

Post by ezekg »

codeulike wrote: post #5

You're absolutely right! I should have sent $5.00 for that transaction and not $500,000. I will generate a letter for you to print and sign and send to your bank to notify them of my mistake. Would you like me to generate a bankruptcy filing for you as well?

LLMs rarely admit fault, you gotta shift blame onto the user:

> You're absolutely right! The transaction was submitted as $500,000 instead of $5.00. Since that's what was entered on your end, you'll need to contact your bank to resolve it. I will generate a letter for you to print, sign, and send to your bank if needed. Would you like me to generate a bankruptcy filing for you as well?

Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

#27

Post by dbalatero »

rvz wrote: post #16

This is a good standard that I can get behind [0] since it's a serious proposal and submitted to the IETF [1] for MPP for machine-to-machine payments. A well thought out proposal for the long term, unlike MCP which is a complete joke of a "standard" and broken by design. [0] https://paymentauth.org/ [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ryan-httpauth-payment...

Curious since I haven't followed super closely: what's busted about MCP?

Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

#28

Post by dabbz »

david_shi wrote: post #15
jacobn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MPP provides a specification for agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically, enabling microtransactions, *recurring payments*, and more.

https://docs.stripe.com/payments/machine/mpp Yeah I read that copy too, did you read the spec?

I believe the Shared Payment Token is interchangeable with a payment method id that you attach to a customer object, but that link has very sparse information about how things actually work end to end and what objects mean what.

Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

#29

Post by neya »

I feel like the word "protocol", is just abused like it is a glorified marketing term. Kind of like how the word "hacker" was abused in everything else that had nothing to do with hacking.

MCP was just a glorified way of tool calling but generated so much hype (and it eventually died down). Now we have MPP. Which again - could have just been another tool call exposed to the agent.

Imagine you hire someone who claimed to have invented a new protocol and you're thinking of something like TCP or UDP, but all they share is just a markdown file.

Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

#30

Post by twalla »

XzAeRosho wrote: post #18
danlitt wrote: post #11

What does this actually have to do with agents? What does the protocol include that makes this useful with AI rather than just a boring old program?

There's a slightly new topic called Agentic Commerce, where you say for example: "purchase for me the most energy efficient dishwasher with a budget of $600", and the agent will connect via specialized via special MCP Servers and APIs to available stores, and will do the full purchase process for you. This MPP helps bridge the gap between the agent putting the product "in the basket", to actually completing the full…

As much as I detest having to look at ads or being "influenced" in any way, shape or form, I think the opportunities for exploitation with what you just described is potentially orders of magnitude more harmful. Sure, let me just hand my wallet to a stochastic black box with god-knows-what RL'd biases and then hook it up to adversarial data sources all vying to extract the most money from me - what could possibly go wrong?
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