# LLM-based Human Simulations Have Not Yet Been Reliable

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.08579 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08579/

## Key facts

- Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 30 of its 83 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Jan 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 30)

- [A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15594/) (2024)
- [Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14576/) (2022)
- [Humans or LLMs as the Judge? A Study on Judgement Biases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10669/) (2024)
- [AgentClinic: a multimodal agent benchmark to evaluate AI in simulated clinical environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.07960/) (2024)
- [Agent Hospital: A Simulacrum of Hospital with Evolvable Medical Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02957/) (2024)
- ["Kelly is a Warm Person, Joseph is a Role Model": Gender Biases in LLM-Generated Reference Letters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09219/) (2023)
- [Are We Done with MMLU?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04127/) (2024)
- [Do LLMs exhibit human-like response biases? A case study in survey design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04076/) (2023)
- [Quantifying the Persona Effect in LLM Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10811/) (2024)
- [EconAgent: Large Language Model-Empowered Agents for Simulating Macroeconomic Activities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10436/) (2023)
- [Cooperate or Collapse: Emergence of Sustainable Cooperation in a Society of LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16698/) (2024)
- [Hello Again! LLM-powered Personalized Agent for Long-term Dialogue](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05925/) (2024)
- [Survey of Cultural Awareness in Language Models: Text and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00860/) (2024)
- [AgentSims: An Open-Source Sandbox for Large Language Model Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04026/) (2023)
- [The Challenge of Using LLMs to Simulate Human Behavior: A Causal Inference Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.15524/) (2023)
- [Learning to Use Tools via Cooperative and Interactive Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03031/) (2024)
- [Towards Reasoning in Large Language Models via Multi-Agent Peer Review Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08152/) (2023)
- [LLM economicus? Mapping the Behavioral Biases of LLMs via Utility Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.02784/) (2024)
- [Urban Generative Intelligence (UGI): A Foundational Platform for Agents in Embodied City Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11813/) (2023)
- [AgentCourt: Simulating Court with Adversarial Evolvable Lawyer Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.08089/) (2024)
- [Deep Learning for Cross-Domain Data Fusion in Urban Computing: Taxonomy, Advances, and Outlook](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19348/) (2024)
- [How Far Are We From AGI: Are LLMs All We Need?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10313/) (2024)
- [PsychoGAT: A Novel Psychological Measurement Paradigm through Interactive Fiction Games with LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12326/) (2024)
- [How Reliable is Your Simulator? Analysis on the Limitations of Current LLM-based User Simulators for Conversational Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16416/) (2024)
- [Evaluating the Performance of Large Language Models via Debates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11044/) (2024)
- [Cognitive Overload Attack:Prompt Injection for Long Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.11272/) (2024)
- [Improve Temporal Awareness of LLMs for Sequential Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02778/) (2024)
- [From Prejudice to Parity: A New Approach to Debiasing Large Language Model Word Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.11512/) (2024)
- [The Economic Implications of Large Language Model Selection on Earnings and Return on Investment: A Decision Theoretic Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17637/) (2024)
- [She Works, He Works: A Curious Exploration of Gender Bias in AI-Generated Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18524/) (2024)

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

- [LLM Social Simulations Are a Promising Research Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02234/) (2025)
- [MasRouter: Learning to Route LLMs for Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11133/) (2025)
- [Towards a Design Guideline for RPA Evaluation: A Survey of Large Language Model-Based Role-Playing Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13012/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models Do Not Simulate Human Psychology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06950/) (2025)
- [Can Compressed LLMs Truly Act? An Empirical Evaluation of Agentic Capabilities in LLM Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19433/) (2025)
- [LLM-Based Social Simulations Require a Boundary](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.19806/) (2025)
- [Approximating Human Strategic Reasoning with LLM-Enhanced Recursive Reasoners Leveraging Multi-agent Hypergames](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07443/) (2025)
- [Diversity Collapse in Multi-Agent LLM Systems: Structural Coupling and Collective Failure in Open-Ended Idea Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.18005/) (2026)
- [Do Role-Playing Agents Practice What They Preach? Belief-Behavior Consistency in LLM-Based Simulations of Human Trust](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02197/) (2025)
- [Beyond Brainstorming: What Drives High-Quality Scientific Ideas? Lessons from Multi-Agent Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04575/) (2025)
- [DPRF: A Generalizable Dynamic Persona Refinement Framework for Optimizing Behavior Alignment Between Personalized LLM Role-Playing Agents and Humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14205/) (2025)
- [PulseReddit: A Novel Reddit Dataset for Benchmarking MAS in High-Frequency Cryptocurrency Trading](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03861/) (2025)
- [SimuPanel: A Novel Immersive Multi-Agent System to Simulate Interactive Expert Panel Discussion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16010/) (2025)
- [Cognitive Models and AI Algorithms Provide Templates for Designing Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22523/) (2026)
- [Simulating Human Memory with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.25680/) (2026)
- [Arti-"fickle" Intelligence: Using LLMs as a Tool for Inference in the Political and Social Sciences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.03822/) (2025)
- [Expanding the Action Space of LLMs to Reason Beyond Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.07581/) (2025)
- [HAG: Hierarchical Demographic Tree-based Agent Generation for Topic-Adaptive Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05656/) (2026)
- [MARO: Learning Stronger Reasoning from Social Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12323/) (2026)
- [Communication Enhances LLMs' Stability in Strategic Thinking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06081/) (2026)
- [Can LLMs Think Like Consumers? Benchmarking Crowd-Level Reaction Reconstruction with ConsumerSimBench](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17079/) (2026)
- [Online Agent-as-a-Judge: Situation-Generating Evaluation for Interactive Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08200/) (2026)
- [Beyond Averages: Evaluating LLMs on Human Survey Replication at the Distributional Level](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09013/) (2026)
- [Artificial Utopia: Simulation and Intelligent Agents for a Democratised Future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07364/) (2025)
- [Doppelganger Method: Breaking Role Consistency in LLM Agent via Prompt-based Transferable Adversarial Attack](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14539/) (2025)
- [HiCoTraj:Zero-Shot Demographic Reasoning via Hierarchical Chain-of-Thought Prompting from Trajectory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12067/) (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)
- [The Granularity Axis: A Micro-to-Macro Latent Direction for Social Roles in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06196/) (2026)
- [Evaluating Language Models in Realistic Conversational Contexts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.26131/) (2026)
- [Cheap Talk Stabilizes Strategic Interaction in LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16270/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly employed for simulating human behaviors across diverse domains. However, our position is that current LLM-based human simulations remain insufficiently reliable, as evidenced by significant discrepancies between their outcomes and authentic human actions. Our investigation begins with a systematic review of LLM-based human simulations in social, economic, policy, and psychological contexts, identifying their common frameworks, recent advances, and persistent limitations. This review reveals that such discrepancies primarily stem from inherent limitations of LLMs and flaws in simulation design, both of which are examined in detail. Building on these insights, we propose a systematic solution framework that emphasizes enriching data foundations, advancing LLM capabilities, and ensuring robust simulation design to enhance reliability. Finally, we introduce a structured algorithm that operationalizes the proposed framework, aiming to guide credible and human-aligned LLM-based simulations. To facilitate further research, we provide a curated list of related literature and resources at https://github.com/Persdre/awesome-llm-human-simulation.