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Large Language Models Empowered Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation: A Survey and Perspectives

The role of LLMs in agent-based modelling and simulation (ABMS): transforming the simulation paradigm through human-like intelligence and behaviour.

Research Questions

  1. What is the role of LLMs in agent-based modelling and simulation (ABMS)?
  2. How can LLM integration address challenges in perception, human alignment, action generation, and evaluation?
  3. What are the future directions for LLM-based ABMS?

Results

  • LLMs introduce a new simulation paradigm with near-human-level intelligence.
  • They overcome limitations of traditional ABMS by enabling perception, reasoning, decision-making, and self-improvement capabilities.
  • LLM-based agents naturally exhibit autonomy, social interaction, environmental responsiveness, and proactiveness.
  • With planning, memory, and reflection mechanisms, they can simulate complex human-like actions.
  • They offer broad applications across social, physical, cyber, and hybrid domains.

Findings

  • A New Paradigm:
    • LLM-driven agents transform ABMS by enabling human-like planning, communication, and adaptive behaviour.
  • Overcoming Traditional Limitations:
    • Instead of manual parameter tuning, heterogeneity can be introduced through prompting or fine-tuning, allowing more realistic agent differentiation.
  • Agent Capabilities:
    • LLM agents naturally demonstrate autonomy, social ability, reactivity, and proactiveness.
  • Action-Generation Mechanisms:
    • The main mechanisms are planning (task decomposition), memory (experience storage), and reflection (self-improvement through feedback).
  • Application Domains:
    • LLM agents have been applied successfully across many domains, including social networks, economic systems, transport, web behaviour, and epidemic control.
  • Open Challenges:
    • Remaining issues include computational cost, a lack of benchmarks for evaluating complex behaviours, bias and ethical risks, and reliability in multi-agent scenarios.

Scores

  • LLM Models: 5
  • Synthetic Data: 4
  • Method: 5
  • Speed: 3
  • Ethics: 4
  • Accuracy: 3
  • Demographics: 2

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