Too Human to Model:The Uncanny Valley of LLMs in Social Simulation -- When Generative Language Agents Misalign with Modelling Principles

TL;DR

This paper argues that large language models, while impressive in generating realistic dialogues, are too human-like and detailed to serve as effective abstract models of social dynamics, revealing fundamental dilemmas and limitations.

Contribution

It introduces a thought experiment converting a social diffusion model into an LLM-based variant, highlighting core dilemmas and the uncanny valley in using LLMs for social simulation.

Findings

Identifies five core dilemmas in LLM-based social modeling.

Shows LLM agents can obscure social mechanisms rather than clarify them.

Defines conditions where LLMs are best suited for social simulation.

Abstract

Large language models (LLMs) have been increasingly used to build agents in social simulation because of their impressive abilities to generate fluent, contextually coherent dialogues. Such abilities can enhance the realism of models. However, the pursuit of realism is not necessarily compatible with the epistemic foundation of modelling. We argue that LLM agents, in many regards, are too human to model: they are too expressive, detailed and intractable to be consistent with the abstraction, simplification, and interpretability typically demanded by modelling. Through a model-building thought experiment that converts the Bass diffusion model to an LLM-based variant, we uncover five core dilemmas: a temporal resolution mismatch between natural conversation and abstract time steps; the need for intervention in conversations while avoiding undermining spontaneous agent outputs; the temptation to introduce rule-like instructions in prompts while maintaining conversational naturalness; the tension between role consistency and role evolution across time; and the challenge of understanding emergence, where system-level patterns become obscured by verbose micro textual outputs. These dilemmas steer the LLM agents towards an uncanny valley: not abstract enough to clarify underlying social mechanisms, while not natural enough to represent realistic human behaviour. This exposes an important paradox: the realism of LLM agents can obscure, rather than clarify, social dynamics when misapplied. We tease out the conditions in which LLM agents are ideally suited: where system-level emergence is not the focus, linguistic nuances and meaning are central, interactions unfold in natural time, and stable role identity is more important than long-term behavioural evolution. We call for repositioning LLM agents in the ecosystem of social simulation for future applications.