Bayesian Belief Layer for Controllable Opinion Dynamics in LLM Agents
Bayesian Chronicle Agents separate explicit belief state from generated speech, making persuasion strength configurable and multi-agent opinion changes auditable.
Bayesian Chronicle Agents represent each stance as a probability and update it once per heard utterance. A single **κ prior-strength parameter** controls stubbornness, producing consensus, persistent disagreement, or committed-minority influence.
For multi-agent simulations, keep belief state outside the language model and let generation express rather than own that state. Persistent disagreement matched analytical fixed points at **R² 0.93–0.99**, and κ retained **perfect rank-order recovery across four models** after the language round-trip.
Bayesian Chronicle Agents represent each stance as a probability and update it once per heard utterance. A single **κ prior-strength parameter** controls stubbornness, producing consensus, persistent disagreement, or committed-minority influence. For multi-agent simulations, keep belief state outside the language model and let generation express rather than own that state. Persistent disagreement matched analytical fixed points at **R² 0.93–0.99**, and κ retained **perfect rank-order recovery across four models** after the language round-trip. This controls a narrow form of opinion dynamics, not general agent reasoning or memory. The abstract does not show whether the same parameterization holds for richer beliefs, longer interactions, or tool-using agents.
This turns one class of multi-agent memory into an explicit, inspectable state transition rather than prose remembered by each model. It reinforces the candidates’ broader external-state and harness-control pattern, while sharply narrowing the claim: a scalar prior-strength parameter can govern stylized stance dynamics, but does not establish a general memory format or coordination mechanism for long-horizon, tool-using agents.