# Simulating Human-like Daily Activities with Desire-driven Autonomy

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06435 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06435/

## Key facts

- Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10601/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11432/) (2023)
- [Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16291/) (2023)
- [Qwen2 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10671/) (2024)
- [The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.07864/) (2023)
- [CAMEL: Communicative Agents for "Mind" Exploration of Large Language Model Society](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17760/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Evaluation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03109/) (2023)
- [HuggingGPT: Solving AI Tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Face](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17580/) (2023)
- [A Survey on the Memory Mechanism of Large Language Model based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13501/) (2024)
- [LLM-Planner: Few-Shot Grounded Planning for Embodied Agents with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04088/) (2022)
- [Generative agent-based modeling with actions grounded in physical, social, or digital space using Concordia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03664/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models as Urban Residents: An LLM Agent Framework for Personal Mobility Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14744/) (2024)
- [Training Socially Aligned Language Models on Simulated Social Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16960/) (2023)
- [Humanoid Agents: Platform for Simulating Human-like Generative Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05418/) (2023)
- [DiffTraj: Generating GPS Trajectory with Diffusion Probabilistic Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11582/) (2023)
- [Augmenting Autotelic Agents with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.12487/) (2023)
- [Learning to Simulate Daily Activities via Modeling Dynamic Human Needs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10897/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 30)

- [AgentSociety: Large-Scale Simulation of LLM-Driven Generative Agents Advances Understanding of Human Behaviors and Society](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08691/) (2025)
- [Multi-Agent Evolve: LLM Self-Improve through Co-evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23595/) (2025)
- [Nuclear Deployed: Analyzing Catastrophic Risks in Decision-making of Autonomous LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11355/) (2025)
- [Population-Aligned Persona Generation for LLM-based Social Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10127/) (2025)
- [LLM-Based Social Simulations Require a Boundary](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.19806/) (2025)
- [GATSim: Urban Mobility Simulation with Generative Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23306/) (2025)
- [LiPUP-MA: A Residential Experience-centric Multi-Agent Framework for Living-in-the-loop Participatory Urban Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20505/) (2024)
- [Communication-Efficient Desire Alignment for Embodied Agent-Human Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22503/) (2025)
- [CAMS: A CityGPT-Powered Agentic Framework for Urban Human Mobility Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13599/) (2025)
- [Towards Simulating Social Influence Dynamics with LLM-based Multi-agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22467/) (2025)
- [Law in Silico: Simulating Legal Society with LLM-Based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24442/) (2025)
- [AIvilization v0: Toward Large-Scale Artificial Social Simulation with a Unified Agent Architecture and Adaptive Agent Profiles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10429/) (2026)
- [Beyond Self-Interest: Modeling Social-Oriented Motivation for Human-like Multi-Agent Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13890/) (2026)
- [Matryoshka Agent: Unfolding Sub-Agents for Long-Horizon Machine Learning Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25090/) (2026)
- [Debiasing International Attitudes: LLM Agents for Simulating US-China Perception Changes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08837/) (2025)
- [MoveFM-R: Advancing Mobility Foundation Models via Language-driven Semantic Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22403/) (2025)
- [Structured Personality Control and Adaptation for LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.10025/) (2026)
- [Online Agent-as-a-Judge: Situation-Generating Evaluation for Interactive Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08200/) (2026)
- [Step-Level Preference Learning for Generative Agents in Social Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.14485/) (2026)
- [IndoorWorld: Integrating Physical Task Solving and Social Simulation in A Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12331/) (2025)
- [Simulating Human Behavior with the Psychological-mechanism Agent: Integrating Feeling, Thought, and Action](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19495/) (2025)
- [Declarative by Design, Assistable Only by Convention: Benchmarking Multi-Agent Frameworks for AI-Assistability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11198/) (2026)
- [LLMs Reading the Rhythms of Daily Life: Aligned Understanding for Behavior Prediction and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23578/) (2026)
- [Bridging Values and Behavior: A Hierarchical Framework for Proactive Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.27699/) (2026)
- [A Motivational Architecture for Conversational AGI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05411/) (2026)
- [MemoryForge: Synthesize Lifelong Memory for Human-Like LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.00007/) (2026)
- [LiveSim: Simulating Environment-Shaped Users in Multi-Agent Live-Stream Ecosystems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.26849/) (2026)
- [Measuring the Behavioral Fidelity of Long-Horizon Human Activity Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01257/) (2026)
- [Generative Embodied Multiple Behavior Control Systems for Human-like Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22691/) (2026)
- [Building Socio-Affective Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Multi-Agent Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26927/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Desires motivate humans to interact autonomously with the complex world. In contrast, current AI agents require explicit task specifications, such as instructions or reward functions, which constrain their autonomy and behavioral diversity. In this paper, we introduce a Desire-driven Autonomous Agent (D2A) that can enable a large language model (LLM) to autonomously propose and select tasks, motivated by satisfying its multi-dimensional desires. Specifically, the motivational framework of D2A is mainly constructed by a dynamic Value System, inspired by the Theory of Needs. It incorporates an understanding of human-like desires, such as the need for social interaction, personal fulfillment, and self-care. At each step, the agent evaluates the value of its current state, proposes a set of candidate activities, and selects the one that best aligns with its intrinsic motivations. We conduct experiments on Concordia, a text-based simulator, to demonstrate that our agent generates coherent, contextually relevant daily activities while exhibiting variability and adaptability similar to human behavior. A comparative analysis with other LLM-based agents demonstrates that our approach significantly enhances the rationality of the simulated activities.