The same time frames that existed when humans manually traded.

Every few seconds is fine.

Disagree? You think milliseconds is “better” somehow?

Then by that logic microseconds are better still! (A straight-faced argument made by thousands of HFT people.)

Then, surely, nanoseconds matter. Again, some traders care deeply about shaving single digit “nanos” off their response times by using smart NICs that can respond before the incoming packet has even finished arriving! Bypassing the CPU entirely because ermahgerd that would waste precious nanos!

Okay, what about femtoseconds? Attoseconds? Low single digit Plank time units?

Clearly the extrapolation is nonsense.

The problem is that there’s always an advantage to some rent-seeker to be faster than everyone else, so there will never be consensus between them and the general public. Or each other.

It’s a classic tragedy of the commons.

This is why laws are required, to prevent that one greedy guy putting “just one more cow” onto the pasture than the other greedy guys.