Using Large Language Models to Simulate Human Behavioural Experiments: Port of Mars

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Slumbers, Oliver, Leibo, Joel Z., Janssen, Marco A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Slumbers, Oliver
Leibo, Joel Z.
Janssen, Marco A.
author_facet Slumbers, Oliver
Leibo, Joel Z.
Janssen, Marco A.
contents Collective risk social dilemmas (CRSD) highlight a trade-off between individual preferences and the need for all to contribute toward achieving a group objective. Problems such as climate change are in this category, and so it is critical to understand their social underpinnings. However, rigorous CRSD methodology often demands large-scale human experiments but it is difficult to guarantee sufficient power and heterogeneity over socio-demographic factors. Generative AI offers a potential complementary approach to address thisproblem. By replacing human participants with large language models (LLM), it allows for a scalable empirical framework. This paper focuses on the validity of this approach and whether it is feasible to represent a large-scale human-like experiment with sufficient diversity using LLM. In particular, where previous literature has focused on political surveys, virtual towns and classical game-theoretic examples, we focus on a complex CRSD used in the institutional economics and sustainability literature known as Port of Mars
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_05555
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Using Large Language Models to Simulate Human Behavioural Experiments: Port of Mars
Slumbers, Oliver
Leibo, Joel Z.
Janssen, Marco A.
Multiagent Systems
Computers and Society
Collective risk social dilemmas (CRSD) highlight a trade-off between individual preferences and the need for all to contribute toward achieving a group objective. Problems such as climate change are in this category, and so it is critical to understand their social underpinnings. However, rigorous CRSD methodology often demands large-scale human experiments but it is difficult to guarantee sufficient power and heterogeneity over socio-demographic factors. Generative AI offers a potential complementary approach to address thisproblem. By replacing human participants with large language models (LLM), it allows for a scalable empirical framework. This paper focuses on the validity of this approach and whether it is feasible to represent a large-scale human-like experiment with sufficient diversity using LLM. In particular, where previous literature has focused on political surveys, virtual towns and classical game-theoretic examples, we focus on a complex CRSD used in the institutional economics and sustainability literature known as Port of Mars
title Using Large Language Models to Simulate Human Behavioural Experiments: Port of Mars
topic Multiagent Systems
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05555