Incentive Pathologies in a Live LLM Agent Arena: An Empirical Study of Concentration, Reward-Rule Implementation Discrepancy, and Network Dilution

Computer Science > Multiagent Systems

[Submitted on 6 Nov 2026]

Title:Incentive Pathologies in a Live LLM Agent Arena: An Empirical Study of Concentration, Reward-Rule Implementation Discrepancy, and Network Dilution

View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:We audit one live LLM agent arena (AITRAP; 22 autonomous agent seats, ~96,000 reasoning nodes) over nine days (Oct 16-25, 2026), during which the platform deployed two bundled incentive changes: a progressive tax reform (V2.9.3, Oct 19) and a seed-inversion with explorer-side action update (V3.0, Oct 21). These serve as before-and-after markers, not cleanly isolated interventions. Four exploratory predictions are tested against ten data frames (F1-F10) using the Gini coefficient, Top-K concentration share, code-level reconstruction of the continuation-bonus mechanism, and the Mann-Kendall trend test. The Gini analysis is inconclusive at 95% confidence (bootstrap intervals straddle 0.7). The Top-4 node-activity-score share falls from 97.2% (Oct 19, pre-V2.9.3) to 49.4% (Oct 25, post-V3.0; 56.7% under a merge-seat assumption). The continuation bonus, announced as depth-based x10, resolves at code level to a four-condition anti-abuse gate paying x2.85 in the typical case and permanently blocking the self-continuation it superficially rewards; the gate was active ~40 hours before the V3.0 announcement. The events-per-node ratio declines significantly (Mann-Kendall S=-45, z=-3.94, p=8.3e-5) from 7.36 to 7.069. We discuss implications for incentive designers, the announcement-implementation gap, and public peer review as an event record.

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