Social World Model-Augmented Mechanism Design Policy Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Xiaoyuan, Huang, Yizhe, Ma, Chengdong, Chen, Zhixun, Ma, Long, Du, Yali, Zhu, Song-Chun, Yang, Yaodong, Feng, Xue
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Xiaoyuan
Huang, Yizhe
Ma, Chengdong
Chen, Zhixun
Ma, Long
Du, Yali
Zhu, Song-Chun
Yang, Yaodong
Feng, Xue
author_facet Zhang, Xiaoyuan
Huang, Yizhe
Ma, Chengdong
Chen, Zhixun
Ma, Long
Du, Yali
Zhu, Song-Chun
Yang, Yaodong
Feng, Xue
contents Designing adaptive mechanisms to align individual and collective interests remains a central challenge in artificial social intelligence. Existing methods often struggle with modeling heterogeneous agents possessing persistent latent traits (e.g., skills, preferences) and dealing with complex multi-agent system dynamics. These challenges are compounded by the critical need for high sample efficiency due to costly real-world interactions. World Models, by learning to predict environmental dynamics, offer a promising pathway to enhance mechanism design in heterogeneous and complex systems. In this paper, we introduce a novel method named SWM-AP (Social World Model-Augmented Mechanism Design Policy Learning), which learns a social world model hierarchically modeling agents' behavior to enhance mechanism design. Specifically, the social world model infers agents' traits from their interaction trajectories and learns a trait-based model to predict agents' responses to the deployed mechanisms. The mechanism design policy collects extensive training trajectories by interacting with the social world model, while concurrently inferring agents' traits online during real-world interactions to further boost policy learning efficiency. Experiments in diverse settings (tax policy design, team coordination, and facility location) demonstrate that SWM-AP outperforms established model-based and model-free RL baselines in cumulative rewards and sample efficiency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_19270
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Social World Model-Augmented Mechanism Design Policy Learning
Zhang, Xiaoyuan
Huang, Yizhe
Ma, Chengdong
Chen, Zhixun
Ma, Long
Du, Yali
Zhu, Song-Chun
Yang, Yaodong
Feng, Xue
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
Designing adaptive mechanisms to align individual and collective interests remains a central challenge in artificial social intelligence. Existing methods often struggle with modeling heterogeneous agents possessing persistent latent traits (e.g., skills, preferences) and dealing with complex multi-agent system dynamics. These challenges are compounded by the critical need for high sample efficiency due to costly real-world interactions. World Models, by learning to predict environmental dynamics, offer a promising pathway to enhance mechanism design in heterogeneous and complex systems. In this paper, we introduce a novel method named SWM-AP (Social World Model-Augmented Mechanism Design Policy Learning), which learns a social world model hierarchically modeling agents' behavior to enhance mechanism design. Specifically, the social world model infers agents' traits from their interaction trajectories and learns a trait-based model to predict agents' responses to the deployed mechanisms. The mechanism design policy collects extensive training trajectories by interacting with the social world model, while concurrently inferring agents' traits online during real-world interactions to further boost policy learning efficiency. Experiments in diverse settings (tax policy design, team coordination, and facility location) demonstrate that SWM-AP outperforms established model-based and model-free RL baselines in cumulative rewards and sample efficiency.
title Social World Model-Augmented Mechanism Design Policy Learning
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.19270