mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

The Consensus Trap: Rescuing Multi-Agent LLMs from Adversarial Majorities via Token-Level Collaboration

arXiv 2604.17139 ↗First posted 18 Apr 2026cs.CL cs.AI cs.MAcited by 8

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Multi-agent large language model (LLM) architectures increasingly rely on response-level aggregation, such as Majority Voting (MAJ), to raise reasoning ceilings. However, in open environments, agents are highly susceptible to stealthy contextual corruption, such as targeted prompt injections. We reveal a critical structural vulnerability in current multi-agent systems: response-level aggregation collapses when corrupted agents form a local majority. Because voting aggregates fully-formed conclusions, it is blind to flawed intermediate logic. To overcome this systematic limitation, we propose the Token-Level Round-Robin (RR) Collaboration, where agents sequentially interleave generation within a shared auto-regressive context. We formalize this process as a discrete-time dynamical system, proving that token-level interleaving transitions aggregation from a brittle counting of final votes (a linear sum) to a dynamic, interwoven chain of logic (a non-linear operator product). Through this theoretical lens, we prove that the honest model's restorative pull can overpower adversarial corruptions, even when corrupted agents form a majority. We conduct an exhaustive empirical evaluation across diverse reasoning benchmarks and demonstrate that while MAJ collapses when corrupted agents reach a majority, RR maintains robust accuracy well beyond this critical threshold.

Key facts. Cited by 8 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 20 of its 32 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Apr 2026.

Builds on

20 of 32 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Encouraging Divergent Thinking in Large Language Models through Multi-Agent Debate30 May

Other references · 19

  1. 2023Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttentioncited by 5,944
  2. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
  3. 2023Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debatecited by 1,784
  4. 2022Fast Inference from Transformers via Speculative Decodingcited by 1,653
  5. 2023Not what you've signed up for: Compromising Real-World LLM-Integrated Applications with Indirect Prompt Injectioncited by 1,443
  6. 2023Large Language Models Cannot Self-Correct Reasoning Yetcited by 1,017
  7. 2022Toy Models of Superpositioncited by 971
  8. 2023Large Language Models Can Be Easily Distracted by Irrelevant Contextcited by 841
  9. 2022Discovering Language Model Behaviors with Model-Written Evaluationscited by 836
  10. 2022Transformers learn in-context by gradient descentcited by 732
  11. 2023The Geometry of Truth: Emergent Linear Structure in Large Language Model Representations of True/False Datasetscited by 712
  12. 2022What learning algorithm is in-context learning? Investigations with linear modelscited by 684
7 more
  1. 2023LLM-Blender: Ensembling Large Language Models with Pairwise Ranking and Generative Fusioncited by 564
  2. 2023Linear Representations of Sentiment in Large Language Modelscited by 163
  3. 2024Ensemble Learning for Heterogeneous Large Language Models with Deep Parallel Collaborationcited by 67
  4. 2024Learning to Decode Collaboratively with Multiple Language Modelscited by 62
  5. 2025Optimizing Temperature for Language Models with Multi-Sample Inferencecited by 33
  6. 2024Truthful Aggregation of LLMs with an Application to Online Advertisingcited by 29
  7. 2024Auctions with LLM Summariescited by 24

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 8.

8 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Beyond the Strongest LLM: Multi-Turn Multi-Agent Orchestration vs. Single LLMs on Benchmarks
  2. 2026Beyond Consensus: Trace-Level Synthesis in Mixture of Agents
  3. 2026Representational Collapse in Multi-Agent LLM Committees: Measurement and Diversity-Aware Consensus
  4. 2026Auditing Multi-Agent LLM Reasoning Trees Outperforms Majority Vote and LLM-as-Judge
  5. 2025TAMAS: Benchmarking Adversarial Risks in Multi-Agent LLM Systems
  6. 2026LLM Constitutional Multi-Agent Governance
  7. 2026The Formalism Trap: Are LLM-as-a-Judge Evaluators Blinded by Consensus Mimicry under Social Load?
  8. 2026Resilient Consensus in Agentic AI