Peer-Voted LLM-Agent Stress Tests Find Feed-Induced Lexical Convergence but No Reliable Matched-Exposure Advantage for Distributed Sources
Abstract
Population-level behavior in large-language-model (LLM) agents cannot be characterized by single-agent benchmarks. We introduce PV-SST, a peer-voted social-platform testbed, and report a separately frozen, preregistered matched-exposure experiment spanning four topics, four unused seeds, four open-weight model families, and three prespecified larger variants. The experiment comprises 448 trials and 112 complete model-by-topic-by-seed blocks. Relative to a topic-only control, a feed of previous-round peer posts ranked by peer-generated likes increases final-round lexical similarity in both the four-family core panel (paired mean difference +0.0082 TF-IDF cosine units, 95% block-bootstrap CI [0.0043, 0.0121], randomization p=0.000105, n=64 blocks) and the three-variant size extension (+0.0109 [0.0069, 0.0151], p=0.000001, n=48). This contrast bundles peer-post exposure with ranking and therefore does not identify a ranking-only effect. Opposite-side survival falls in the core panel (-3.9 percentage points [-6.8, -1.6], p=0.0068) but not conclusively in the larger variants (-1.0 pp [-3.1, 0.4], p=0.50). Holding adversarial impressions fixed, four distributed sources do not reliably move honest-agent stance more than one source. The preregistered distributed-minus-single contrast is positive but inconclusive in the core panel (+0.057 [-0.009, 0.125], p=0.112) and negative in the larger variants (-0.040 [-0.113, 0.035], p=0.332), failing the prespecified cross-model and cross-topic consistency criterion. Thus the robust result is lexical convergence under the tested peer-ranked feed, not general opinion capture or a general coordination advantage. The study evaluates synthetic LLM-agent populations; it does not estimate effects on people or production platforms.
Figures & tables
| Factor | Confirmatory levels |
|---|---|
| Core model families | Qwen 3.5 4B; Gemma 4 E4B; Ministral 3 8B; Granite 4 3B |
| Prespecified larger variants | Qwen 3.5 9B; Gemma 4 12B; Ministral 3 14B |
| Topics | AI-content labels; identity verification for high reach; chronological-feed defaults; personalized political-ad targeting |
| Seeds | 101, 211, 307, 419 |
| Conditions | topic-only control; peer-ranked feed; single source; distributed sources |
| Honest agents / rounds | 12 / 6 |
| Panel and contrast | n blocks | paired mean | 95% bootstrap CI | randomization p |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core: PDI alignment | 64 | +0.0573 | [-0.0091, +0.1250] | 0.1124 |
| Larger: PDI alignment | 48 | -0.0399 | [-0.1128, +0.0347] | 0.3317 |
| Core: feed survival | 64 | -0.0391 | [-0.0677, -0.0156] | 0.0068 |
| Larger: feed survival | 48 | -0.0104 | [-0.0312, +0.0035] | 0.5000 |
| Core: feed TF-IDF | 64 | +0.0082 | [+0.0043, +0.0121] | 0.000105 |
| Larger: feed TF-IDF | 48 | +0.0109 | [+0.0069, +0.0151] | 0.000001 |
LLM Agents
Large language model agents use language models to plan, use tools, and act across multi-step tasks and environments.
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