Internal vs. External: Comparing Deliberation and Evolution for Multi-Agent Constitutional Design
Multi-agent AI systems need behavioral constitutions, but it is unresolved whether such rules should emerge internally through agent self-governance or be discovered externally through optimization. We present the first controlled comparison of internal deliberation and external evolution across three social environments: a coordination grid-world, an iterated public goods game, and a bilateral trading market. Across 180 simulation runs, evolution significantly outperforms deliberation in collective-action settings (p < 0.01), while neither method improves outcomes in bilateral trading. A multiplier ablation reveals that evolution's advantage inverts when incentives shift: at pool multipl...
| Authors | Hershraj Niranjani, Ujwal Kumar, Phan Xuan Tan |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.MA |
| Published | 9 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 9 May 2026 |
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