The Interaction Tax: When Communication Erases Diversity in Multi-Agent Teams
Read the original on arXiv AI →The Flow has not summarised this story yet — read it at arXiv AI.
The Flow has not summarised this story yet — read it at arXiv AI.
arXiv:2608.22152v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multi-agent systems built from large language models are deployed widely, yet how much performance is lost when two LLMs must coordinate rather than ac...
arXiv:2603. 20324v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Multi-agent LLM pipelines produce contradictory evidence on whether team diversity improves output quality: heterogeneous Mixture-of-Agents teams outperform single models, yet homogeneous Self-MoA teams consistently win under synthesis-based aggregation.
The study evaluates multi‑agent debate (MAD) in small language models, testing whether cognitive diversity—via personas, sampling temperature, or model identity—drives performance gains. Across 23 models, five tasks, and over 5,500 runs, MAD consistently outperforms single‑model inference but, when matched for generation budget, it ties or falls behind self‑consistency sampling, with persona prompting actually reducing accuracy. The authors find that MAD’s benefits largely stem from the first answer exchange and that many reported gains are due to ensemble‑sampling effects rather than true diversity, highlighting the need for budget‑matched, contamination‑checked baselines. whyItMatters":"The findings clarify that MAD’s perceived advantages may be overestimated and that future debate mechanisms must be evaluated against rigorous, budget‑matched baselines to ensure genuine performance improvements."
arXiv:2604. 11840v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Language models are increasingly used to simulate people: survey respondents, negotiators, stakeholders in policy exercises.
arXiv:2607. 16133v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: LLM powered multi-agent systems (MAS) have emerged as a promising paradigm for complex tasks.
arXiv:2602. 12089v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As AI usage becomes more prevalent in social contexts, understanding agent-user interaction is critical to designing systems that imp rove both individual and group outcomes.