{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/the-hidden-strength-of-disagreement","title":"The Hidden Strength of Disagreement: Unraveling the Consensus-Diversity Tradeoff in Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems","arxiv_id":"2502.16565","date":"2025-02-23","proceeding":null,"authors":["Zengqing Wu","Takayuki Ito"],"abstract":"Consensus formation is pivotal in multi-agent systems (MAS), balancing collective coherence with individual diversity. Conventional LLM-based MAS primarily rely on explicit coordination, e.g., prompts or voting, risking premature homogenization. We argue that implicit consensus, where agents exchange information yet independently form decisions via in-context learning, can be more effective in dynamic environments that require long-horizon adaptability. By retaining partial diversity, systems can better explore novel strategies and cope with external shocks. We formalize a consensus-diversity tradeoff, showing conditions where implicit methods outperform explicit ones. Experiments on three scenarios -- Dynamic Disaster Response, Information Spread and Manipulation, and Dynamic Public-Goods Provision -- confirm partial deviation from group norms boosts exploration, robustness, and performance. We highlight emergent coordination via in-context learning, underscoring the value of preserving diversity for resilient decision-making.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.16565v2","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.16565v2.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"the-hidden-strength-of-disagreement","repo_url":"https://github.com/wuzengqing001225/consensusdiversitytradeoffmas","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"none","reach":{"status":"ok"}}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"decision-making","task_name":"Decision Making"},{"task_slug":"disaster-response","task_name":"Disaster Response"},{"task_slug":"diversity","task_name":"Diversity"},{"task_slug":"in-context-learning","task_name":"In-Context Learning"}],"methods":[{"method_slug":"mas","method_name":"MAS"}],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"syntology_url":null,"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2502.16565","mcp":null,"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers"},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}