Towards Recommender Systems LLMs Playground (RecSysLLMsP): Exploring Polarization and Engagement in Simulated Social Networks

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Main Authors: Bojic, Ljubisa, Dodevska, Zorica, Deldjoo, Yashar, Pantelic, Nenad
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Bojic, Ljubisa
Dodevska, Zorica
Deldjoo, Yashar
Pantelic, Nenad
author_facet Bojic, Ljubisa
Dodevska, Zorica
Deldjoo, Yashar
Pantelic, Nenad
contents Given the exponential advancement in AI technologies and the potential escalation of harmful effects from recommendation systems, it is crucial to simulate and evaluate these effects early on. Doing so can help prevent possible damage to both societies and technology companies. This paper introduces the Recommender Systems LLMs Playground (RecSysLLMsP), a novel simulation framework leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to explore the impacts of different content recommendation setups on user engagement and polarization in social networks. By creating diverse AI agents (AgentPrompts) with descriptive, static, and dynamic attributes, we assess their autonomous behaviour across three scenarios: Plurality, Balanced, and Similarity. Our findings reveal that the Similarity Scenario, which aligns content with user preferences, maximizes engagement while potentially fostering echo chambers. Conversely, the Plurality Scenario promotes diverse interactions but produces mixed engagement results. Our study emphasizes the need for a careful balance in recommender system designs to enhance user satisfaction while mitigating societal polarization. It underscores the unique value and challenges of incorporating LLMs into simulation environments. The benefits of RecSysLLMsP lie in its potential to calculate polarization effects, which is crucial for assessing societal impacts and determining user engagement levels with diverse recommender system setups. This advantage is essential for developing and maintaining a successful business model for social media companies. However, the study's limitations revolve around accurately emulating reality. Future efforts should validate the similarity in behaviour between real humans and AgentPrompts and establish metrics for measuring polarization scores.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_00055
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Recommender Systems LLMs Playground (RecSysLLMsP): Exploring Polarization and Engagement in Simulated Social Networks
Bojic, Ljubisa
Dodevska, Zorica
Deldjoo, Yashar
Pantelic, Nenad
Social and Information Networks
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
Human-Computer Interaction
Information Retrieval
Given the exponential advancement in AI technologies and the potential escalation of harmful effects from recommendation systems, it is crucial to simulate and evaluate these effects early on. Doing so can help prevent possible damage to both societies and technology companies. This paper introduces the Recommender Systems LLMs Playground (RecSysLLMsP), a novel simulation framework leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to explore the impacts of different content recommendation setups on user engagement and polarization in social networks. By creating diverse AI agents (AgentPrompts) with descriptive, static, and dynamic attributes, we assess their autonomous behaviour across three scenarios: Plurality, Balanced, and Similarity. Our findings reveal that the Similarity Scenario, which aligns content with user preferences, maximizes engagement while potentially fostering echo chambers. Conversely, the Plurality Scenario promotes diverse interactions but produces mixed engagement results. Our study emphasizes the need for a careful balance in recommender system designs to enhance user satisfaction while mitigating societal polarization. It underscores the unique value and challenges of incorporating LLMs into simulation environments. The benefits of RecSysLLMsP lie in its potential to calculate polarization effects, which is crucial for assessing societal impacts and determining user engagement levels with diverse recommender system setups. This advantage is essential for developing and maintaining a successful business model for social media companies. However, the study's limitations revolve around accurately emulating reality. Future efforts should validate the similarity in behaviour between real humans and AgentPrompts and establish metrics for measuring polarization scores.
title Towards Recommender Systems LLMs Playground (RecSysLLMsP): Exploring Polarization and Engagement in Simulated Social Networks
topic Social and Information Networks
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
Human-Computer Interaction
Information Retrieval
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00055