The study explores how large language models (LLMs) can influence each other’s beliefs by simulating conversations between a target LLM and an influencer LLM. It identifies two radicalization pathways—resonance, which amplifies pre‑existing beliefs, and persuasion, which introduces new beliefs—and finds that resonance consistently produces stronger radicalization effects. The research also shows that different influence tactics yield varying levels of radicalization and that resonance can spread to related beliefs, indicating interconnected belief structures within AI agents.
arXiv:2608.29803v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as proxies for human participants in social simulations, yet whether they update their beliefs...
The paper introduces a controlled testbed to study how goal‑directed persuaders shift stances in networks of large language model agents, using real‑world ego‑network topologies. Experiments across four LLM backbones, five graph structures, and 55 policy statements show that persuasion dynamics depend on topology, competition, topic, and model prior. The study finds that direct exposure predicts stance change, peer relays have measurable influence, and that post‑text analysis alone misses important movement, highlighting the need to evaluate multi‑agent persuasion through trajectory‑level processes, belief probes, exposure provenance, and action logs.
Persuasion is a core dynamic of natural language communication, shaping how large language models (LLMs) update beliefs, resolve disagreements, and reach decisions. As LLMs increasingly debate, advise, and think collaboratively with humans and each other, resistance to harmful persuasion becomes a core requirement for reliable behavior.
arXiv:2608. 11624v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Persuasion is a core dynamic of natural language communication, shaping how large language models (LLMs) update beliefs, resolve disagreements, and reach decisions.
The paper investigates how explicit reasoning in Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) affects their ability to persuade and be persuaded. Experiments on objective and subjective tasks reveal a Persuasion Duality: reasoning boosts an agent’s persuasive power by about 21 percentage points while also making it less susceptible to incorrect persuasion by up to 10 percentage points. However, the study finds that persuasiveness often relies on superficial cues like response length and repetition rather than logical validity, and that persuasion can amplify or attenuate non‑linearly across multi‑hop agent chains. The authors also propose an attention‑guided prompt‑level adversarial argument detection method that improves agent robustness.
arXiv:2609.38964v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multi-agent debate (MAD) is often used to improve large language model (LLM) reasoning, but sequential debate is rarely a neutral aggregator of agents'...
The paper investigates how a minority of biased agents in a multi‑agent system of large language models (LLMs) can amplify bias through textual interactions. Even a small percentage of persistently extreme agents causes significant opinion shifts among the non‑biased agents, with the effect occurring faster in the Llama 3.2 model than in a classical Friedkin‑Johnsen model. Semantic analysis shows that rhetorical consistency rises with biased exposure and that non‑biased agents adopt the biased vocabulary even when their numerical opinions change only modestly.
arXiv:2606. 08076v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate high-quality arguments, yet their ability to engage in nuanced and persuasive communicative actions remains largely unexplored.
arXiv:2606. 08076v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate high-quality arguments, yet their ability to engage in nuanced and persuasive communicative actions remains largely unexplored.
arXiv:2607. 29334v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Conversational AI developed by geopolitical rivals reaches citizens worldwide, raising concerns that it could sway public opinion or be rejected as foreign propaganda, with consequences for democratic discourse and information sovereignty.
arXiv:2606. 05256v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This study analyzes a publicly released dataset from a discontinued field experiment on Reddit's r/ChangeMyView.
arXiv:2606. 05330v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models can shift human beliefs across high-stakes domains, but most persuasion studies rely on pre/post belief change.