Unraveling the emergence of collective behavior in networks of cognitive agents

Abstract Cognitive agents, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), possess advanced reasoning and communication capabilities that fundamentally distinguish them from non-cognitive particles, which rely solely on formal rules. While their ability to replicate human individual and social behaviors is still under scrutiny, the impact of their embedded “intelligence” on emergent behaviors remains poorly understood. Here, by comparing cognitive agents with classic particles, we investigate how LLM c