How a Chatbot's Response Style Shapes a Classroom: A Multi-Agent Simulation of Students Consulting AI

תקציר מקורי באנגליתarXiv:2609.05018v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: LLM-based chatbots are increasingly used as everyday confidants. Because they are designed to maximize user satisfaction, they can respond with excessive empathy and affirmation, which may reinforce mistaken beliefs and foster dependence on AI. While the psychological effects of chatbots on individual users have begun to be studied, how the psychological states and relationships of many users evolve when they keep consulting an AI is hard to observe in real settings. We build a virtual classroom simulation in which 20 student agents interact and, when stressed, consult either a friend or a counselor AI (Gemini 2.5 Flash). Each agent carries five state variables (stress, happiness, self-reliance, AI dependence, sociability), and each day has