Benchmarking LLMs' Swarm intelligence
Large Language Models (LLMs) show potential for complex reasoning, yet their
capacity for emergent coordination in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) when operating
under strict constraints-such as limited local perception and communication,
characteristic of natural swarms-remains largely unexplored, particularly
concerning the nuances of swarm intelligence. Existing benchmarks often do not
fully capture the unique challenges of decentralized coordination that arise
when agents operate with incomplete spatio-temporal information. To bridge this
gap, we introduce SwarmBench, a novel benchmark designed to systematically
evaluate the swarm intelligence capabilities of LLMs acting as decentralized
agents. SwarmBench features five foundational MAS coordination tasks within a
configurable 2D grid environment, forcing agents to rely primarily on local
sensory input (k x k view) and local communication. We propose metrics for
coordination effectiveness and analyze emergent group dynamics. Evaluating
several leading LLMs in a zero-shot setting, we find significant performance
variations across tasks, highlighting the difficulties posed by local
information constraints. While some coordination emerges, results indicate
limitations in robust planning and strategy formation under uncertainty in
these decentralized scenarios. Assessing LLMs under swarm-like conditions is
crucial for realizing their potential in future decentralized systems. We
release SwarmBench as an open, extensible toolkit-built upon a customizable and
scalable physical system with defined mechanical properties. It provides
environments, prompts, evaluation scripts, and the comprehensive experimental
datasets generated, aiming to foster reproducible research into LLM-based MAS
coordination and the theoretical underpinnings of Embodied MAS. Our code
repository is available at https://github.com/x66ccff/swarmbench.
681c189c791c72783efe5a94
Kai Ruan
claimed_verified
2025-05-08T08:58:58.134Z
6205fefd3f1dc8a642d70b10
https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/1673948194938-6205fefd3f1dc8a642d70b10.jpeg
Kai Ruan
user
6cf
681c189c791c72783efe5a95
Mowen Huang
681c189c791c72783efe5a96
Ji-Rong Wen
681c189c791c72783efe5a97
Hao Sun
Benchmarking LLMs' Swarm intelligence
Large Language Models (LLMs) show potential for complex reasoning, yet their
capacity for emergent coordination in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) when operating
under strict constraints-such as limited local perception and communication,
characteristic of natural swarms-remains largely unexplored, particularly
concerning the nuances of swarm intelligence. Existing benchmarks often do not
fully capture the unique challenges of decentralized coordination that arise
when agents operate with incomplete spatio-temporal information. To bridge this
gap, we introduce SwarmBench, a novel benchmark designed to systematically
evaluate the swarm intelligence capabilities of LLMs acting as decentralized
agents. SwarmBench features five foundational MAS coordination tasks within a
configurable 2D grid environment, forcing agents to rely primarily on local
sensory input (k x k view) and local communication. We propose metrics for
coordination effectiveness and analyze emergent group dynamics. Evaluating
several leading LLMs in a zero-shot setting, we find significant performance
variations across tasks, highlighting the difficulties posed by local
information constraints. While some coordination emerges, results indicate
limitations in robust planning and strategy formation under uncertainty in
these decentralized scenarios. Assessing LLMs under swarm-like conditions is
crucial for realizing their potential in future decentralized systems. We
release SwarmBench as an open, extensible toolkit-built upon a customizable and
scalable physical system with defined mechanical properties. It provides
environments, prompts, evaluation scripts, and the comprehensive experimental
datasets generated, aiming to foster reproducible research into LLM-based MAS
coordination and the theoretical underpinnings of Embodied MAS. Our code
repository is available at https://github.com/x66ccff/swarmbench.
New benchmark evaluates LLMs in decentralized coordination tasks under limited information, highlighting challenges and potential for future systems.
Large Language Models Multi-Agent Systems SwarmBench decentralized coordination local perception local communication swarm intelligence coordination tasks 2D grid environment k x k view coordination effectiveness emergent group dynamics zero-shot evaluation robust planning strategy formation uncertainty Embodied MAS