mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Peer-Voted LLM-Agent Stress Tests Find Feed-Induced Lexical Convergence but No Reliable Matched-Exposure Advantage for Distributed Sources

arXiv 2608.20438 ↗First posted 20 Aug 2026physics.soc-ph cs.AI cs.MAcited by 0

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Population-level behavior in large-language-model (LLM) agents cannot be characterized by single-agent benchmarks. We introduce PV-SST, a peer-voted social-platform testbed, and report a separately frozen, preregistered matched-exposure experiment spanning four topics, four unused seeds, four open-weight model families, and three prespecified larger variants. The experiment comprises 448 trials and 112 complete model-by-topic-by-seed blocks. Relative to a topic-only control, a feed of previous-round peer posts ranked by peer-generated likes increases final-round lexical similarity in both the four-family core panel (paired mean difference +0.0082 TF-IDF cosine units, 95% block-bootstrap CI [0.0043, 0.0121], randomization p=0.000105, n=64 blocks) and the three-variant size extension (+0.0109 [0.0069, 0.0151], p=0.000001, n=48). This contrast bundles peer-post exposure with ranking and therefore does not identify a ranking-only effect. Opposite-side survival falls in the core panel (-3.9 percentage points [-6.8, -1.6], p=0.0068) but not conclusively in the larger variants (-1.0 pp [-3.1, 0.4], p=0.50). Holding adversarial impressions fixed, four distributed sources do not reliably move honest-agent stance more than one source. The preregistered distributed-minus-single contrast is positive but inconclusive in the core panel (+0.057 [-0.009, 0.125], p=0.112) and negative in the larger variants (-0.040 [-0.113, 0.035], p=0.332), failing the prespecified cross-model and cross-topic consistency criterion. Thus the robust result is lexical convergence under the tested peer-ranked feed, not general opinion capture or a general coordination advantage. The study evaluates synthetic LLM-agent populations; it does not estimate effects on people or production platforms.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (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 5 of its 12 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Aug 2026.

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  1. 2025Spiral of Silence in Large Language Model Agents28 Sep
  2. 2025MOSAIC: Modeling Social AI for Content Dissemination and Regulation in Multi-Agent Simulations10 Apr
  3. 2023Simulating Opinion Dynamics with Networks of LLM-based Agents16 Nov
  4. 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior7 Apr

Other references · 1

  1. 2024OASIS: Open Agent Social Interaction Simulations with One Million Agentscited by 132

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  5. 2025Exploring Large Language Model Agents for Piloting Social Experiments
  6. 2023Exploring Collaboration Mechanisms for LLM Agents: A Social Psychology View
  7. 2025Are LLM Agents Behaviorally Coherent? Latent Profiles for Social Simulation
  8. 2026Delay-of-Gratification as a Multi-Agent Survival Micro-benchmark for Long-Horizon LLMs: Social Exposure, Personas, and Tool Use Budgets