mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Simulating Opinion Dynamics with Networks of LLM-based Agents

arXiv 2311.09618 ↗First posted 16 Nov 2023physics.soc-ph cs.CLcited by 153

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Social simulation and multi-agent debate

Abstract (arXiv)

Accurately simulating human opinion dynamics is crucial for understanding a variety of societal phenomena, including polarization and the spread of misinformation. However, the agent-based models (ABMs) commonly used for such simulations often over-simplify human behavior. We propose a new approach to simulating opinion dynamics based on populations of Large Language Models (LLMs). Our findings reveal a strong inherent bias in LLM agents towards producing accurate information, leading simulated agents to consensus in line with scientific reality. This bias limits their utility for understanding resistance to consensus views on issues like climate change. After inducing confirmation bias through prompt engineering, however, we observed opinion fragmentation in line with existing agent-based modeling and opinion dynamics research. These insights highlight the promise and limitations of LLM agents in this domain and suggest a path forward: refining LLMs with real-world discourse to better simulate the evolution of human beliefs.

Key facts. Cited by 153 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Social simulation and multi-agent debate, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 22 of its 54 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 16 Nov 2023.

Builds on

22 of 54 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023MetaAgents: Large Language Model Based Agents for Decision-Making on Teaming10 Oct
  2. 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior7 Apr

Other references · 20

  1. 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,393
  2. 2017Deep reinforcement learning from human preferencescited by 3,846
  3. 2022Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Modelscited by 2,997
  4. 2019Fine-Tuning Language Models from Human Preferencescited by 2,124
  5. 2023Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debatecited by 1,739
  6. 2021Ethical and social risks of harm from Language Modelscited by 957
  7. 2023Whose Opinions Do Language Models Reflect?cited by 759
  8. 2022Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3cited by 389
  9. 2023SOTOPIA: Interactive Evaluation for Social Intelligence in Language Agentscited by 350
  10. 2022Social Simulacra: Creating Populated Prototypes for Social Computing Systemscited by 300
  11. 2023From Pretraining Data to Language Models to Downstream Tasks: Tracking the Trails of Political Biases Leading to Unfair NLP Modelscited by 257
  12. 2023Marked Personas: Using Natural Language Prompts to Measure Stereotypes in Language Modelscited by 204
8 more
  1. 2022On the Origin of Hallucinations in Conversational Models: Is it the Datasets or the Models?cited by 137
  2. 2023Aligning Language Models to User Opinionscited by 98
  3. 2023CoMPosT: Characterizing and Evaluating Caricature in LLM Simulationscited by 94
  4. 2023NLPositionality: Characterizing Design Biases of Datasets and Modelscited by 91
  5. 2023Turning large language models into cognitive modelscited by 66
  6. 2023Lyfe Agents: Generative agents for low-cost real-time social interactionscited by 49
  7. 2023Quantifying the Impact of Large Language Models on Collective Opinion Dynamicscited by 22
  8. 2015From Competition to Complementarity: Comparative Influence Diffusion and Maximizationcited by 6

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 33; 2025: 52; 2026: 67.

153 papers.

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  2. 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Modelscited by 120
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  4. 2024Systematic Biases in LLM Simulations of Debatescited by 98
  5. 2024From Individual to Society: A Survey on Social Simulation Driven by Large Language Model-based Agentscited by 76
  6. 2024Unveiling the Truth and Facilitating Change: Towards Agent-based Large-scale Social Movement Simulationcited by 69
  7. 2024Nicer Than Humans: How do Large Language Models Behave in the Prisoner's Dilemma?cited by 62
  8. 2023The Persuasive Power of Large Language Modelscited by 46
  9. 2024Y Social: an LLM-powered Social Media Digital Twincited by 43
  10. 2024Beyond Demographics: Aligning Role-playing LLM-based Agents Using Human Belief Networkscited by 39
  11. 2024LLMs generate structurally realistic social networks but overestimate political homophilycited by 31
  12. 2024Decoding Echo Chambers: LLM-Powered Simulations Revealing Polarization in Social Networkscited by 31
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  4. 2024No Preference Left Behind: Group Distributional Preference Optimizationcited by 21
  5. 2025Population-Aligned Persona Generation for LLM-based Social Simulationcited by 20
  6. 2024Psychometric Alignment: Capturing Human Knowledge Distributions via Language Modelscited by 18
  7. 2024When LLMs Play the Telephone Game: Cultural Attractors as Conceptual Tools to Evaluate LLMs in Multi-turn Settingscited by 17
  8. 2026Lying with Truths: Open-Channel Multi-Agent Collusion for Belief Manipulation via Generative Montagecited by 17
  9. 2025Unmasking Conversational Bias in AI Multiagent Systemscited by 16
  10. 2025Simulating Rumor Spreading in Social Networks using LLM Agentscited by 16
  11. 2024LLM-based multi-agent poetry generation in non-cooperative environmentscited by 15
  12. 2024Tracking the perspectives of interacting language modelscited by 14
  13. 2024LMAgent: A Large-scale Multimodal Agents Society for Multi-user Simulationcited by 14
  14. 2026Does Socialization Emerge in AI Agent Society? A Case Study of Moltbookcited by 13
  15. 2024LLM2Swarm: Robot Swarms that Responsively Reason, Plan, and Collaborate through LLMscited by 12
  16. 2024CTINexus: Automatic Cyber Threat Intelligence Knowledge Graph Construction Using Large Language Modelscited by 12
  17. 2025Bridging the Creativity Understanding Gap: Small-Scale Human Alignment Enables Expert-Level Humor Ranking in LLMscited by 12
  18. 2025MF-LLM: Simulating Population Decision Dynamics via a Mean-Field Large Language Model Frameworkcited by 12
  19. 2024Social Opinions Prediction Utilizes Fusing Dynamics Equation with LLM-based Agentscited by 11
  20. 2025YuLan-OneSim: Towards the Next Generation of Social Simulator with Large Language Modelscited by 11
  21. 2025LLM-Based Social Simulations Require a Boundarycited by 11
  22. 2024PLAYER*: Enhancing LLM-based Multi-Agent Communication and Interaction in Murder Mystery Gamescited by 10
  23. 2024PingPong: A Benchmark for Role-Playing Language Models with User Emulation and Multi-Model Evaluationcited by 10
  24. 2025United Minds or Isolated Agents? Exploring Coordination of LLMs under Cognitive Load Theorycited by 10
  25. 2026PolicySim: An LLM-Based Agent Social Simulation Sandbox for Proactive Policy Optimizationcited by 10
  26. 2024A Large-Scale Simulation on Large Language Models for Decision-Making in Political Sciencecited by 9
  27. 2025Improving Language Model Personas via Rationalization with Psychological Scaffoldscited by 9
  28. 2025Beyond Static Responses: Multi-Agent LLM Systems as a New Paradigm for Social Science Researchcited by 9
  29. 2025SPeCtrum: A Grounded Framework for Multidimensional Identity Representation in LLM-Based Agentcited by 8
  30. 2025Breaking Bad Tokens: Detoxification of LLMs Using Sparse Autoencoderscited by 8
  31. 2025Modeling Earth-Scale Human-Like Societies with One Billion Agentscited by 8
  32. 2025From the Fluency Fallacy to the Micro-to-Macro Validity Gap: Opportunities and Pitfalls of LLMs in Social Simulationcited by 8
  33. 2025RALLY: Role-Adaptive LLM-Driven Yoked Navigation for Agentic UAV Swarmscited by 7
  34. 2024PersLLM: A Personified Training Approach for Large Language Modelscited by 6
  35. 2025Reputation as a Solution to Cooperation Collapse in LLM-based MASscited by 6
  36. 2025Don't Trust Generative Agents to Mimic Communication on Social Networks Unless You Benchmarked their Empirical Realismcited by 6
  37. 2025Emergent Coordinated Behaviors in Networked LLM Agents: Modeling the Strategic Dynamics of Information Operationscited by 6
  38. 2026Stop Drawing Scientific Claims from LLM Social Simulations Without Robustness Auditscited by 6

50 most cited of 153 All 153 (JSON)

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  4. 2025Simulating Influence Dynamics with LLM Agents
  5. 2026Opinion Consensus Formation Among Networked Large Language Models
  6. 2025Towards Simulating Social Influence Dynamics with LLM-based Multi-agents
  7. 2024On the Principles behind Opinion Dynamics in Multi-Agent Systems of Large Language Models
  8. 2026Bayesian Belief Layer for Controllable Opinion Dynamics in LLM Agents