Internal vs. External: Comparing Deliberation and Evolution for Multi-Agent Constitutional Design

Multi-agent AI systems need behavioral constitutions, but it is unresolved whether such rules should emerge internally through agent self-governance or be discovered externally through optimization. We present the first controlled comparison of internal deliberation and external evolution across three social environments: a coordination grid-world, an iterated public goods game, and a bilateral trading market. Across 180 simulation runs, evolution significantly outperforms deliberation in collec

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ethics.ai (9 May 2026), “Internal vs. External: Comparing Deliberation and Evolution for Multi-Agent Constitutional Design,” evidence record 4653, https://ethics.ai/record/4653 (originally published by arXiv).

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