mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Emergent social conventions and collective bias in LLM populations

arXiv 2410.08948 ↗First posted 11 Oct 2024cs.MA cs.AI cs.CYcited by 123

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Cited by 61 in LLM agents and tool use, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.

Abstract (arXiv)

Social conventions are the backbone of social coordination, shaping how individuals form a group. As growing populations of artificial intelligence (AI) agents communicate through natural language, a fundamental question is whether they can bootstrap the foundations of a society. Here, we present experimental results that demonstrate the spontaneous emergence of universally adopted social conventions in decentralized populations of large language model (LLM) agents. We then show how strong collective biases can emerge during this process, even when agents exhibit no bias individually. Last, we examine how committed minority groups of adversarial LLM agents can drive social change by imposing alternative social conventions on the larger population. Our results show that AI systems can autonomously develop social conventions without explicit programming and have implications for designing AI systems that align, and remain aligned, with human values and societal goals.

Key facts. Cited by 123 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 42 of its 85 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Oct 2024.

Builds on

42 of 85 references.

References · 42

  1. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,971
  2. 2022Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasonerscited by 4,374
  3. 2021The Power of Scale for Parameter-Efficient Prompt Tuningcited by 3,795
  4. 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behaviorcited by 3,568
  5. 2023A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agentscited by 2,242
  6. 2023Large Language Models Cannot Self-Correct Reasoning Yetcited by 1,017
  7. 2024Large Language Model based Multi-Agents: A Survey of Progress and Challengescited by 769
  8. 2023Bias and Fairness in Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 639
  9. 2022Using Large Language Models to Simulate Multiple Humans and Replicate Human Subject Studiescited by 515
  10. 2024Hallucination is Inevitable: An Innate Limitation of Large Language Modelscited by 332
  11. 2023Large Language Models Fail on Trivial Alterations to Theory-of-Mind Taskscited by 292
  12. 2023Playing repeated games with Large Language Modelscited by 217
30 more
  1. 2024Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Modelscited by 199
  2. 2016Multi-Agent Cooperation and the Emergence of (Natural) Languagecited by 185
  3. 2023Simulating Opinion Dynamics with Networks of LLM-based Agentscited by 154
  4. 2023Should ChatGPT be Biased? Challenges and Risks of Bias in Large Language Modelscited by 148
  5. 2024Prompt Infection: LLM-to-LLM Prompt Injection within Multi-Agent Systemscited by 133
  6. 2024GTBench: Uncovering the Strategic Reasoning Limitations of LLMs via Game-Theoretic Evaluationscited by 120
  7. 2023Generative Language Models Exhibit Social Identity Biasescited by 111
  8. 2018Emergence of Linguistic Communication from Referential Games with Symbolic and Pixel Inputcited by 102
  9. 2023CoAnnotating: Uncertainty-Guided Work Allocation between Human and Large Language Models for Data Annotationcited by 94
  10. 2024LLM-based Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: Current and Future Directionscited by 67
  11. 2024Nicer Than Humans: How do Large Language Models Behave in the Prisoner's Dilemma?cited by 63
  12. 2023Machine Culturecited by 55
  13. 2023Knowledge of cultural moral norms in large language modelscited by 51
  14. 2024Can Unconfident LLM Annotations Be Used for Confident Conclusions?cited by 49
  15. 2024Evaluating Language Model Agency through Negotiationscited by 48
  16. 2024Y Social: an LLM-powered Social Media Digital Twincited by 44
  17. 2023Using Imperfect Surrogates for Downstream Inference: Design-based Supervised Learning for Social Science Applications of Large Language Modelscited by 39
  18. 2024A new sociology of humans and machinescited by 32
  19. 2024Steering Language Models with Game-Theoretic Solverscited by 28
  20. 2023Emergence of Scale-Free Networks in Social Interactions among Large Language Modelscited by 20
  21. 2015The Spontaneous Emergence of Conventions: An Experimental Study of Cultural Evolutioncited by 17
  22. 2024Measuring Social Norms of Large Language Modelscited by 17
  23. 2022Do Multilingual Language Models Capture Differing Moral Norms?cited by 15
  24. 2024Agent Alignment in Evolving Social Normscited by 15
  25. 2023Shaping the Emerging Norms of Using Large Language Models in Social Computing Researchcited by 14
  26. 2024Evolution of Social Norms in LLM Agents using Natural Languagecited by 13
  27. 2017The Emergence of Consensus: A Primercited by 12
  28. 2018The Dynamics of Norm Change in the Cultural Evolution of Languagecited by 8
  29. 2023Shaping New Norms for AIcited by 7
  30. 2021Group interactions modulate critical mass dynamics in social conventioncited by 6

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 33; 2026: 90.

123 papers.

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  1. 2025Agentic Large Language Models, a surveycited by 108
  2. 2025Emergent Abilities in Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 37
  3. 2025Emergent Coordination in Multi-Agent Language Modelscited by 23
  4. 2025How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy: The fusion of agentic AI and LLMs marks a new frontier in information warfarecited by 20
  5. 2025Unmasking Conversational Bias in AI Multiagent Systemscited by 17
  6. 2025Group size effects and collective misalignment in LLM multi-agent systemscited by 16
  7. 2026Conformity and Social Impact on AI Agentscited by 16
  8. 2026Does Socialization Emerge in AI Agent Society? A Case Study of Moltbookcited by 15
  9. 2026Collective Behavior of AI Agents: the Case of Moltbookcited by 13
  10. 2025LLM-Based Social Simulations Require a Boundarycited by 12
  11. 2026Assessing the Reliability of Persona-Conditioned LLMs as Synthetic Survey Respondentscited by 10
  12. 2025Emergent LLM behaviors are observationally equivalent to data leakagecited by 9
38 more
  1. 2025Many LLMs Are More Utilitarian Than Onecited by 8
  2. 2026Stop Drawing Scientific Claims from LLM Social Simulations Without Robustness Auditscited by 8
  3. 2025Simulating Dispute Mediation with LLM-Based Agents for Legal Researchcited by 7
  4. 2026Reward Modeling for Reinforcement Learning-Based LLM Reasoning: Design, Challenges, and Evaluationcited by 7
  5. 2026The Devil Behind Moltbook: Anthropic Safety is Always Vanishing in Self-Evolving AI Societiescited by 7
  6. 2026FlowSteer: Prompt-Only Workflow Steering Exposes Planning-Time Vulnerabilities in Multi-Agent LLM Systemscited by 7
  7. 2025Emergent Coordinated Behaviors in Networked LLM Agents: Modeling the Strategic Dynamics of Information Operationscited by 6
  8. 2026Generative AI collective behavior needs an interactionist paradigmcited by 6
  9. 2026When Is Collective Intelligence a Lottery? Multi-Agent Scaling Laws for Memetic Drift in LLMscited by 6
  10. 2025Exploring Consciousness in LLMs: A Systematic Survey of Theories, Implementations, and Frontier Riskscited by 5
  11. 2025To Mask or to Mirror: Human-AI Alignment in Collective Reasoningcited by 5
  12. 2026Overstating Attitudes, Ignoring Networks: LLM Biases in Simulating Misinformation Susceptibilitycited by 5
  13. 2026Tool Use Enables Undetectable Steganography in Multi-Agent LLM Systemscited by 5
  14. 2026Most LLM Conformity Needs No Speaker: Measuring the Speaker-Free Floor in Peer-Pressure Benchmarkscited by 5
  15. 2025A large-scale evaluation of commonsense knowledge in humans and large language modelscited by 4
  16. 2025Machines in the Crowd? Measuring the Footprint of Machine-Generated Text on Redditcited by 4
  17. 2026Feedback by Design: Understanding and Overcoming User Feedback Barriers in Conversational Agentscited by 4
  18. 2026From Signals to Structure: How Memory Architecture Drives Language Emergence in LLM Agentscited by 4
  19. 2025Interaction Protocol Shapes Moral Judgment in Multi-Agent Debatecited by 3
  20. 2025ARCANE: A Multi-Agent Framework for Interpretable and Configurable Alignmentcited by 3
  21. 2025Agent-based simulation of online social networks and disinformationcited by 3
  22. 2026Game-Theoretic Lens on LLM-based Multi-Agent Systemscited by 3
  23. 2026Failure of contextual invariance in large language modelscited by 3
  24. 2026The Moltbook Observatory Archive: an incremental dataset of agent-only social network activitycited by 3
  25. 2026Exploring the Topology and Memory of Consensus: How LLM Agents Agree, Fragment, or Settle When Forming Conventionscited by 3
  26. 2026Emergence of Biased Consensus in Multi-Agent LLM Debatescited by 3
  27. 2025Can AI automatically analyze public opinion? A LLM agents-based agentic pipeline for timely public opinion analysiscited by 2
  28. 2025Reply to "Emergent LLM behaviors are observationally equivalent to data leakage"cited by 2
  29. 2025Shall We Play a Game? Language Models for Open-ended Wargamescited by 2
  30. 2025RELATE-Sim: Leveraging Turning Point Theory and LLM Agents to Predict and Understand Long-Term Relationship Dynamics through Interactive Narrative Simulationscited by 2
  31. 2025Social Welfare Function Leaderboard: When LLM Agents Allocate Social Welfarecited by 2
  32. 2025Social Simulations with Large Language Model Risk Utopian Illusioncited by 2
  33. 2025Large language models replicate and predict human cooperation across experiments in game theorycited by 2
  34. 2026An Empirical Study of Collective Behaviors and Social Dynamics in Large Language Model Agentscited by 2
  35. 2026Structural Divergence Between AI-Agent and Human Social Networks in Moltbookcited by 2
  36. 2026MOSAIC: Unveiling the Moral, Social and Individual Dimensions of Large Language Modelscited by 2
  37. 2026Social Dynamics as Critical Vulnerabilities that Undermine Objective Decision-Making in LLM Collectivescited by 2
  38. 2026Agentic Microphysics: A Manifesto for Generative AI Safetycited by 2

50 most cited of 123 All 123 (JSON)

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  2. 2024Spontaneous Emergence of Agent Individuality through Social Interactions in LLM-Based Communities
  3. 2025The Social Cost of Intelligence: Emergence, Propagation, and Amplification of Stereotypical Bias in Multi-Agent Systems
  4. 2024Cultural Evolution of Cooperation among LLM Agents
  5. 2025Will Systems of LLM Agents Cooperate: An Investigation into a Social Dilemma
  6. 2026Population Physics, Population Problems: Safety and Emergence in LLM Societies
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  8. 2026Evaluating Collective Behaviour of Hundreds of LLM Agents