As you say, the problem is that, in an oligopoly, raising prices is often game theoretically optimal. And while explicit collusion may be illegal, implicit collusion (all parties noticing the best strategy independently) currently isn't. I don't see that computers add much of an interesting angle, except, as the article states, to make irrational or accidental defection less likely.
So really the law on this has always been pretty broken in theory, but maybe it worked well enough in practice. With computers that may change and the law will adapt to some other broken-in-theory system that works just well enough in practice.
>to make irrational or accidental defection less likely.
Why do you believe these behaviors are less likely? A single bug could wipe out all previous gains and incorrect assumptions could cause behavior that is later identified as irrational.
What happens is you end up with a wasteful meta-bureaucracy where competing companies and governments form committees to set prices.
I used to work for an ocean container shipping company, and due to idiosyncrasies of maritime law and the fact that these companies are considered "too big to fail" by governments, they are exempt from certain price-fixing laws in many countries including the US and Canada (but they are no longer exempt in the EU since 2008). Carriers are required to publish their rate schedules and surcharges and jointly announce rate increases 30 days in advance of the effective date.
They also share service strings, so a weekly Transpacific service may have a rotation of five different vessels from different carriers, who lease each other container space. They are officially not allowed to restrict supply in a coordinated fashion to prop up prices anymore, but they have to jointly make operational decisions to downsize or cancel service strings, which is effectively the same thing.
The result of this, along with numerous government and private bailouts, is that many of these perennially loss-making companies with inefficient operations and terrible service continue to limp along and slowly bleed shareholder value, whereas in a free market they would have been bankrupted and their assets liquidated years ago.
Though to be honest, I think anti-discrimination laws are even more broken. One reason being that price fixing has to involve multiple companies, where anti-discrimination laws can involve just one company even if there are plenty of other jobs that the employee could choose from.
So really the law on this has always been pretty broken in theory, but maybe it worked well enough in practice. With computers that may change and the law will adapt to some other broken-in-theory system that works just well enough in practice.