# Artificial Leviathan: Exploring Social Evolution of LLM Agents Through the Lens of Hobbesian Social Contract Theory

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.14373 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14373/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Social simulation and multi-agent debate, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 8 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Jun 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Social simulation and multi-agent debate](https://mlsanity.com/agents/social-simulation-and-multi-agent-debate/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Large Language Model based Multi-Agents: A Survey of Progress and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01680/) (2024)
- [Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14576/) (2022)
- [War and Peace (WarAgent): Large Language Model-based Multi-Agent Simulation of World Wars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17227/) (2023)
- [Cooperate or Collapse: Emergence of Sustainable Cooperation in a Society of LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16698/) (2024)
- [Creating a Large Language Model of a Philosopher](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01339/) (2023)
- [Synergizing Human-AI Agency: A Guide of 23 Heuristics for Service Co-Creation with LLM-Based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15065/) (2023)
- [Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.00447/) (2016)

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Cultural Evolution of Cooperation among LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10270/) (2024)
- [Agentic World Modeling: Foundations, Capabilities, Laws, and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22748/) (2026)
- [BookWorld: From Novels to Interactive Agent Societies for Creative Story Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.14538/) (2025)
- [Beyond Static Responses: Multi-Agent LLM Systems as a New Paradigm for Social Science Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01839/) (2025)
- [Agentic Workflows for Conversational Human-AI Interaction Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.18002/) (2025)
- [Political Actor Agent: Simulating Legislative System for Roll Call Votes Prediction with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07144/) (2024)
- [AI Agent Behavioral Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06366/) (2025)
- [Gender Dynamics and Homophily in a Social Network of LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02606/) (2026)
- [How Social is It? A Benchmark for LLMs' Capabilities in Multi-user Multi-turn Social Agent Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.04628/) (2025)
- [Ella: Embodied Social Agents with Lifelong Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.24019/) (2025)
- [AgentCity: Constitutional Governance for Autonomous Agent Economies via Separation of Power](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07007/) (2026)
- [CrimeMind: Simulating Urban Crime with Multi-Modal LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05981/) (2025)
- [Multilingual Agent-Based World Modeling for Social Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07195/) (2025)
- [Leveraging Large Language Models for Tacit Knowledge Discovery in Organizational Contexts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.03811/) (2025)
- [CAMO: An Agentic Framework for Automated Causal Discovery from Micro Behaviors to Macro Emergence in LLM Agent Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.14691/) (2026)
- [Synthetic Linguistic Agency: How an Embodied Mortal Agent Learns Linguistic Affordances through Consequential Social Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.27843/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) offer an opportunity for computational social science research at scale. Building upon prior explorations of LLM agent design, our work introduces a simulated agent society where complex social relationships dynamically form and evolve over time. Agents are imbued with psychological drives and placed in a sandbox survival environment. We conduct an evaluation of the agent society through the lens of Thomas Hobbes's seminal Social Contract Theory (SCT). We analyze whether, as the theory postulates, agents seek to escape a brutish "state of nature" by surrendering rights to an absolute sovereign in exchange for order and security. Our experiments unveil an alignment: Initially, agents engage in unrestrained conflict, mirroring Hobbes's depiction of the state of nature. However, as the simulation progresses, social contracts emerge, leading to the authorization of an absolute sovereign and the establishment of a peaceful commonwealth founded on mutual cooperation. This congruence between our LLM agent society's evolutionary trajectory and Hobbes's theoretical account indicates LLMs' capability to model intricate social dynamics and potentially replicate forces that shape human societies. By enabling such insights into group behavior and emergent societal phenomena, LLM-driven multi-agent simulations, while unable to simulate all the nuances of human behavior, may hold potential for advancing our understanding of social structures, group dynamics, and complex human systems.