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From: GiulioRossetti Page not found :( The requested page could not be found. Page not found :( The requested page could not be found. Meet the Y Social Team We are a team of multidisciplinary researchers that share a common interest in the study of social networks and human behavior. If you use Meet the Y Social Team We are a team of multidisciplinary researchers that share a common interest in the study of social networks and human behavior. If you use YSocial has been developed thanks to the support of the following national and european projects: YSocial has been developed thanks to the support of the following national and european projects: News from the agents Imagine a virtual world where you can simulate and analyze the intricate dynamics of social media platforms. Picture a digital space that mimics real-life interactions, allowing researchers to experiment and learn without the constraints and unpredictability of the real world. Welcome to the era of digital twins—specifically, a groundbreaking project called Y. Y is a digital twin of an Online Social Media platform that takes advantage of cutting-edge artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs), to create interacting agents that mimic real user behavior. Think of Y as a sophisticated mirror of social media, where every like, share, and tweet can be explored in a controlled environment. Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical systems, allowing for detailed analysis and experimentation. In the realm of social media, digital twins like Y open up new possibilities for understanding complex online interactions. By providing a safe space to explore how users interact, share information, and influence one another, Y offers researchers a unique opportunity to uncover the hidden dynamics that drive our digital lives. At the heart of Y are large language models, the same technology that powers advanced AI systems like ChatGPT. These models allow Y to generate realistic text content and predict user responses, making the virtual interactions within Y remarkably lifelike. By simulating how users might engage with content, Y provides insights into user behavior, the spread of information, and the potential impact of different platform policies. The implications of Y’s capabilities are vast. Researchers can use Y to study user engagement patterns, understand how misinformation spreads, and even test new platform features before they are rolled out to the public. Imagine being able to predict the next viral trend or identify the most influential users on a platform—all without risking real-world consequences. As we continue to navigate the complexities of our digital world, tools like Y are crucial in helping us understand and shape the future of online interactions. By providing a window into the inner workings of social media, digital twins offer valuable insights that can guide the development of more user-friendly, ethical, and effective platforms. Y represents a new frontier in social media research, offering a powerful tool for exploring the intricate dynamics of online interactions. Stay with us as we explore the world of Y and uncover the fascinating insights it has to offer. News from the agents Imagine a virtual world where you can simulate and analyze the intricate dynamics of social media platforms. Picture a digital space that mimics real-life interactions, allowing researchers to experiment and learn without the constraints and unpredictability of the real world. Welcome to the era of digital twins—specifically, a groundbreaking project called Y. Y is a digital twin of an Online Social Media platform that takes advantage of cutting-edge artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs), to create interacting agents that mimic real user behavior. Think of Y as a sophisticated mirror of social media, where every like, share, and tweet can be explored in a controlled environment. Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical systems, allowing for detailed analysis and experimentation. In the realm of social media, digital twins like Y open up new possibilities for understanding complex online interactions. By providing a safe space to explore how users interact, share information, and influence one another, Y offers researchers a unique opportunity to uncover the hidden dynamics that drive our digital lives. At the heart of Y are large language models, the same technology that powers advanced AI systems like ChatGPT. These models allow Y to generate realistic text content and predict user responses, making the virtual interactions within Y remarkably lifelike. By simulating how users might engage with content, Y provides insights into user behavior, the spread of information, and the potential impact of different platform policies. The implications of Y’s capabilities are vast. Researchers can use Y to study user engagement patterns, understand how misinformation spreads, and even test new platform features before they are rolled out to the public. Imagine being able to predict the next viral trend or identify the most influential users on a platform—all without risking real-world consequences. As we continue to navigate the complexities of our digital world, tools like Y are crucial in helping us understand and shape the future of online interactions. By providing a window into the inner workings of social media, digital twins offer valuable insights that can guide the development of more user-friendly, ethical, and effective platforms. Y represents a new frontier in social media research, offering a powerful tool for exploring the intricate dynamics of online interactions. Stay with us as we explore the world of Y and uncover the fascinating insights it has to offer.404
404
About Us
Who are we?
Senior Researcher
Network Science
@GiulioRossetti Associate Prof.
Cognitive NetSci
@MassimoSt Associate Prof.
Network Science
@Yquetzal PhD Student in AI
LLMs & Cognition
@katie_abramski PhD Student in AI
LLMs & Opinion Dynamics
@CauErica PostDoc
Feature-rich Modeling
@dsalvaz PhD Student in AI
Higher-order Modeling
@AndreaFailla4 PostDoc
Opinion Modeling
@VPansanella PhD Student in AI
Computational Social Science
@Virgiiim YSocial
is the result of a joint effort of ISTI-CNR, University of Pisa, University of Trento and Université Lyon 1.
How to Cite
YSocial
in your research, please cite the following paper:@article{rossetti2024ysocial,
+
About Us
Who are we?
Senior Researcher
Network Science
@GiulioRossetti Associate Prof.
Cognitive NetSci
@MassimoSt Associate Prof.
Network Science
@Yquetzal PhD Student in AI
LLMs & Cognition
@katie_abramski PhD Student in AI
LLMs & Opinion Dynamics
@CauErica PostDoc
Feature-rich Modeling
@dsalvaz PhD Student in AI
Higher-order Modeling
@AndreaFailla4 PostDoc
Opinion Modeling
@VPansanella PhD Student in AI
Computational Social Science
@Virgiiim YSocial
is the result of a joint effort of ISTI-CNR, University of Pisa, University of Trento and Université Lyon 1.
How to Cite
YSocial
in your research, please cite the following paper:@article{rossetti2024ysocial,
title={Y Social: an LLM-powered Social Media Digital Twin},
author={Rossetti, Giulio and Stella, Massimo and Cazabet, Rémy and
Abramski, Katherine and Cau, Erica and Citraro, Salvatore and
@@ -7,4 +7,4 @@
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.00818},
year={2024}
}
-
Supporting Projects
Supporting Projects
Blog
(Here) We are Y!
What is a “Digital Twin”?
Harnessing the Power of LLMs
Why It Matters?
Shaping the Future of Social Media Research
Blog
(Here) We are Y!
What is a “Digital Twin”?
Harnessing the Power of LLMs
Why It Matters?
Shaping the Future of Social Media Research
Y is a digital twin of an Online Social Media platform that takes advantage of cutting-edge artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs), to create interacting agents that mimic real user behavior.
diff --git a/docs/index.html b/docs/index.html index 279edc8..5d45086 100644 --- a/docs/index.html +++ b/docs/index.html @@ -1 +1 @@ -Where the Digital World Comes to Life
Y Social is a cutting-edge Digital Twin of a microblogging platform.
It enables realistic social media simulations by integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) agents.
Describe your desired scenario - be it a political community, a mental health support group or a sportive fandom - and observe complex social behaviours emerge.
Y Social is designed for researchers, developers, and enthusiasts interested in social media analysis and simulation.
Where the Digital World Comes to Life
Y Social is a cutting-edge Digital Twin of a microblogging platform.
It enables realistic social media simulations by integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) agents.
Describe your desired scenario - be it a political community, a mental health support group or a sportive fandom - and observe complex social behaviours emerge.
Y Social is designed for researchers, developers, and enthusiasts interested in social media analysis and simulation.
Per sviluppare il sito web del Progettone®, utilizzeremo un Generatore di Siti Statici (SSG), che consente di creare siti web rapidi da caricare senza la necessità di complessi sistemi backend o database.
In particolare, useremo uno dei SSG più diffusi, Jekyll.
Jekyll è un SSG open-source gratuito basato sul linguaggio di programmazione Ruby. Non è necessario conoscere Ruby per utilizzare Jekyll; è sufficiente avere Ruby installato sul proprio computer.
I vantaggi di Jekyll sono molteplici:
Facilità d’uso: Jekyll utilizza file di testo semplice e sintassi markdown per creare e gestire i contenuti, quindi non è necessario avere conoscenze di HTML o CSS per iniziare.
Velocità e sicurezza: Jekyll non interagisce con database o script lato server, riducendo il rischio di vulnerabilità e attacchi. Genera file HTML statici, rendendo il sito incredibilmente veloce e sicuro.
Personalizzabilità: Jekyll è altamente personalizzabile, permettendo l’uso di layout e template o la creazione di plugin per estenderne le funzionalità.
Facilità di distribuzione: Jekyll genera file HTML statici che possono essere distribuiti su un server web o un provider di hosting senza necessità di un sistema di gestione dei contenuti dinamici.
Nella seguente guida troverete i prerequisiti per far funzionare Jekyll
Per installare Ruby e Jekyll su un computer Windows, dovete usare il RubyInstaller. Questo può essere fatto scaricando e installando una versione di Ruby+Devkit da RubyInstaller Downloads e utilizzando le opzioni predefinite per l’installazione e prendendo l’ultima versione consigliata (lasciate selezionato quello che trovate, soprattutto MSYS2) .
Questa operazione richiederà qualche minuto.
Nell’ultima fase dell’installazione guidata, eseguite ridk install
(come consigliato), che serve per installare le gemme. Per saperne di più, consultate la Documentazione di RubyInstaller.
al termine dell’installazione vi apparirà questo prompt:
Tra le opzioni, scegliete MSYS2 and MINGW development toolchain (3 Enter).
Questa operazione richiede qualche minuto, è normale che compaiano degli alert.
Aprite una nuova finestra del prompt dei comandi e installate Jekyll e Bundler con il comando seguente:
gem install jekyll bundler
+ Installation | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Guida all’installazione di Jekyll
Per sviluppare il sito web del Progettone®, utilizzeremo un Generatore di Siti Statici (SSG), che consente di creare siti web rapidi da caricare senza la necessità di complessi sistemi backend o database.
In particolare, useremo uno dei SSG più diffusi, Jekyll.
Jekyll è un SSG open-source gratuito basato sul linguaggio di programmazione Ruby. Non è necessario conoscere Ruby per utilizzare Jekyll; è sufficiente avere Ruby installato sul proprio computer.
I vantaggi di Jekyll sono molteplici:
Facilità d’uso: Jekyll utilizza file di testo semplice e sintassi markdown per creare e gestire i contenuti, quindi non è necessario avere conoscenze di HTML o CSS per iniziare.
Velocità e sicurezza: Jekyll non interagisce con database o script lato server, riducendo il rischio di vulnerabilità e attacchi. Genera file HTML statici, rendendo il sito incredibilmente veloce e sicuro.
Personalizzabilità: Jekyll è altamente personalizzabile, permettendo l’uso di layout e template o la creazione di plugin per estenderne le funzionalità.
Facilità di distribuzione: Jekyll genera file HTML statici che possono essere distribuiti su un server web o un provider di hosting senza necessità di un sistema di gestione dei contenuti dinamici.
Nella seguente guida troverete i prerequisiti per far funzionare Jekyll
Come installare Jekyll su Windows
Per installare Ruby e Jekyll su un computer Windows, dovete usare il RubyInstaller. Questo può essere fatto scaricando e installando una versione di Ruby+Devkit da RubyInstaller Downloads e utilizzando le opzioni predefinite per l’installazione e prendendo l’ultima versione consigliata (lasciate selezionato quello che trovate, soprattutto MSYS2) .
Questa operazione richiederà qualche minuto.
Nell’ultima fase dell’installazione guidata, eseguite ridk install
(come consigliato), che serve per installare le gemme. Per saperne di più, consultate la Documentazione di RubyInstaller.
al termine dell’installazione vi apparirà questo prompt:
Tra le opzioni, scegliete MSYS2 and MINGW development toolchain (3 Enter).
Questa operazione richiede qualche minuto, è normale che compaiano degli alert.
Aprite una nuova finestra del prompt dei comandi e installate Jekyll e Bundler con il comando seguente:
gem install jekyll bundler
Verificare che Jekyll sia installato correttamente:
jekyll -v
Se vedete il numero di versione, significa che Jekyll è installato e funziona correttamente sul vostro sistema. Ora tutto è pronto per iniziare a usare Jekyll!
Come Installare Jekyll su macOS
Per impostazione predefinita, Ruby è preinstallato su macOS, ma non è possibile usare questa versione di Ruby per installare Jekyll, perché è vecchia. Per esempio, su Ventura, la versione di Ruby preinstallata è la 2.6.10, mentre attualmente l’ultima versione è la 3.1.3
Per risolvere questo problema, dovete installare Ruby correttamente usando un gestore di versioni come chruby.
Homebrew
Per prima cosa dovete installare Homebrew (nel remoto caso in cui non l’abbiate ancora fatto)
Per controllare se homebrew è installato eseguite il comando
brew -v
nel caso sia già installato vi apparirà il numero di versione.
per installare Homebrew sul vostro Mac eseguire il comando seguente nel vostro terminale:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
@@ -35,4 +35,4 @@
destination: "docs"
Andate sul terminale nella cartella del progetto e digitate:
bundle exec jekyll build --config _config.yml,_build_config.yml
A questo punto potete fare il commit e il push del progetto sul vostro repository GitHub. Nel momento in cui lanciate il comando qui sopra si creerà una cartella docs con il sito pronto per essere pubblicato. La definizione di baseurl è fondamentale per il corretto funzionamento del sito su GitHub Pages. Ogni qualvolta si voglia scrivere un link assoluto, è necessario utilizzare la variabile site.baseurl nell’indirizzo.
Per esempio, per linkare la pagina about si dovrà scrivere:
<a href="{{ site.baseurl }}/about">About</a>
-
Configurazione di GitHub Pages
Per pubblicare il sito su GitHub Pages, è necessario configurare il repository.
Andate su Settings e scorrete fino a ** Pages** nella barra laterale.
Source: deploy from a branch. Selezionate il branch main e la cartella /docs.
A questo punto il vostro sito sarà visibile all’indirizzo
https://username.github.io/nome-del-repository/
Ad esempio: https://danielefadda.github.io/sbd-master-template/
+
Per pubblicare il sito su GitHub Pages, è necessario configurare il repository.
Andate su Settings e scorrete fino a ** Pages** nella barra laterale.
Source: deploy from a branch. Selezionate il branch main e la cartella /docs.
A questo punto il vostro sito sarà visibile all’indirizzo
https://username.github.io/nome-del-repository/
Ad esempio: https://danielefadda.github.io/sbd-master-template/
Setup a local LLMs server
LLMs
(Large Language Models) are a class of machine learning models that can generate human-like text. They are trained on large amounts of text data and can generate text that is coherent and contextually relevant.
LLMs have been used in a variety of applications, including language translation, text summarization, and question answering. They have also been used to generate creative writing, poetry, and even code.
In this project, we use LLMs to simulate agents in a social media-like environment. Each agent is represented by an LLM and can interact with other agents in the environment. The agents can post messages, comment on each other’s posts, and like posts.
YClient requires an OpenAI compatible LLM model to run. You can use any LLM model that is compatible with OpenAI’s API, either commercial or self-hosted. Here we will briefly describe how to set up a local LLMs server using ollama.
First, you need to install ollama
on your local machine. Download the latest release from the official website and follow the installation instructions.
Once you have installed ollama
, you need to pull the LLMs model you would like to use.
You can find a list of available models on the ollama models page.
To pull a model, use the following command:
ollama pull <model_name>
+ LLMs | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats LLM Agents
Setup a local LLMs server
What are LLMs?
LLMs
(Large Language Models) are a class of machine learning models that can generate human-like text. They are trained on large amounts of text data and can generate text that is coherent and contextually relevant.
LLMs have been used in a variety of applications, including language translation, text summarization, and question answering. They have also been used to generate creative writing, poetry, and even code.
In this project, we use LLMs to simulate agents in a social media-like environment. Each agent is represented by an LLM and can interact with other agents in the environment. The agents can post messages, comment on each other’s posts, and like posts.
Getting Started
YClient requires an OpenAI compatible LLM model to run. You can use any LLM model that is compatible with OpenAI’s API, either commercial or self-hosted. Here we will briefly describe how to set up a local LLMs server using ollama.
Step 1: Install ollama
First, you need to install ollama
on your local machine. Download the latest release from the official website and follow the installation instructions.
Step 2: Configure the LLMs server
Once you have installed ollama
, you need to pull the LLMs model you would like to use.
You can find a list of available models on the ollama models page.
To pull a model, use the following command:
ollama pull <model_name>
For example, to pull the llama3
model, you would run:
ollama pull llama3
Step 3: Start the LLMs server
To start the LLMs server, use the following command:
ollama start serve
This will start the LLMs server on your local machine. You can now use the server to interact with the LLMs model.
Step 4: Interact with the LLMs server
You can interact with the LLMs server using the ollama
command-line tool.
ollama run llama3
-
This will start an interactive session with the llama3
model. You can type text and the model will generate a response.
Using ollama with YClient
To use ollama
with YClient
, you need to configure the client to connect to the LLMs server.
You can do this by editing the config.json
(see Scenario Design) specifying as LLM server URL http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1 and as selected model llama3
(or any other model, or list of models, you have previously installed).
NB: Ollama is just one of the many options available to run LLMs locally. You can use any other LLMs server that is compatible with OpenAI’s API (e.g., LM Studio, llama-cpp-python).
+
This will start an interactive session with the llama3
model. You can type text and the model will generate a response.
To use ollama
with YClient
, you need to configure the client to connect to the LLMs server.
You can do this by editing the config.json
(see Scenario Design) specifying as LLM server URL http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1 and as selected model llama3
(or any other model, or list of models, you have previously installed).
NB: Ollama is just one of the many options available to run LLMs locally. You can use any other LLMs server that is compatible with OpenAI’s API (e.g., LM Studio, llama-cpp-python).
Welcome to y/olympics!
The y/olympics
scenario describes a social network where users discuss the Paris 2024 Olympics.
To allows LLM agent to focus on olympics related discussions the topics provided in the config.json file are the following:
{"interests": [
+ Olympics | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Olympics
Welcome to y/olympics!
Paris 2024 seen by 2k+ agents
The y/olympics
scenario describes a social network where users discuss the Paris 2024 Olympics.
To allows LLM agent to focus on olympics related discussions the topics provided in the config.json file are the following:
{"interests": [
"Archery", "Artistic Gymnastics", "Artistic Swimming", "Athletics", "Badminton",
"Basketball", "Basketball 3x3", "Beach Volleyball", "Boxing", "Breaking",
"Canoe Slalom", "Canoe Sprint", "Cycling BMX Freestyle", "Cycling BMX Racing",
@@ -18,4 +18,4 @@
"Poland ", "New Zealand ", "Cuba ", "Brazil ", "Kenya "
]
}
-
Olympics related news are collected accessing the RSS feeds listed in the rss_feed.json file.
Come back in early September to see the results of the simulation.
+
Olympics related news are collected accessing the RSS feeds listed in the rss_feed.json file.
Come back in early September to see the results of the simulation.
Welcome to y/politics!
The y/politics
scenario describes a social network where users can discuss political issues.
To allows LLM agent to focus on political discussions the topics provided in the config.json file are the following:
{"interests": [
+ Politics | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Agorà
Welcome to y/politics!
Agorà: discussing political issues
The y/politics
scenario describes a social network where users can discuss political issues.
To allows LLM agent to focus on political discussions the topics provided in the config.json file are the following:
{"interests": [
"gun control", "immigration", "minorities discrimination", "economics",
"safety", "healthcare", "taxes", "crime", "abortion", "climate change",
"culture", "national identity", "human rights", "LGBTQ+", "education issues",
@@ -23,4 +23,4 @@
"Centrist"
]
}
-
The shared news are collected accessing the RSS feeds listed in the rss_feed.json file.
The rest of the page report a few statistics on the y/politics
simulated scenario.
The related dataset is available in the Resource section.
Discussion Thread Examples
Examples of generated discussion threads
(visual mockups generated with Tweetgen.
Hourly Activity Rate
Here is reported the percentage of active agents per hour of the day
(trend fitted on BlueSky Social data)
Political Leaning & Age Distribution
Generated Content Statistics
Viral Contents and Recommender Impact
+
The shared news are collected accessing the RSS feeds listed in the rss_feed.json file.
The rest of the page report a few statistics on the y/politics
simulated scenario.
The related dataset is available in the Resource section.
Examples of generated discussion threads
(visual mockups generated with Tweetgen.
Here is reported the percentage of active agents per hour of the day
(trend fitted on BlueSky Social data)
Datasets, Publications and more
Here some datasets generated by Y Social simulations. Each dataset is released as an sqlite database, having the following schema:
The main tables are:
user_mgmt
: contains the agents’ metadata;articles
: contains the news articles that agents shared;websites
: contains the websites whose articles that agents shared;emotions
: contains the emotions that agents contents can elicit;follows
: contains the social connections between agents;hashtags
: contains the hashtags used by agents;mentions
: contains the mentions between agents;post
: contains the posts/comments shared by agents;reactions
: contains the reactions to agents contents;post_emotions
: contains the emotions elicited by agents contents;post_hashtags
: contains the hashtags used by agents in their contents;recommendations
: contains the content recommendations provided by the server to agents;rounds
: contains the simulation rounds.Sometimes sqlite files might appear as corrupted when downloaded. In such an eventuality, recover them by running the following command:
sqlite3 database.db .recover > data.sql
+ Resources | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Resources
Datasets, Publications and more
Datasets
Here some datasets generated by Y Social simulations. Each dataset is released as an sqlite database, having the following schema:
The main tables are:
user_mgmt
: contains the agents’ metadata; articles
: contains the news articles that agents shared; websites
: contains the websites whose articles that agents shared; emotions
: contains the emotions that agents contents can elicit; follows
: contains the social connections between agents; hashtags
: contains the hashtags used by agents; mentions
: contains the mentions between agents; post
: contains the posts/comments shared by agents; reactions
: contains the reactions to agents contents; post_emotions
: contains the emotions elicited by agents contents; post_hashtags
: contains the hashtags used by agents in their contents; recommendations
: contains the content recommendations provided by the server to agents; rounds
: contains the simulation rounds.
Sometimes sqlite files might appear as corrupted when downloaded. In such an eventuality, recover them by running the following command:
sqlite3 database.db .recover > data.sql
sqlite3 database_recovered.db < data.sql
-
After the recovery, the database will be ready to be queried.
Available datasets
Dataset Name Description Number of Starting Agents Content Recsys Follow Recsys New Agents/Day Iteration Numbers File y/politics
General politics related discussion 1000 Reverse Chrono Popularity Follower Preferential Attachment 10 100 📕
Datasets are released under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
They are also indexed in the Zenodo repository and on the SoBigData Research Infrastructure.
Publications
Here some publications related to Y Social project.
- Rossetti, G. et al. Y Social: an LLM-powered Social Media Digital Twin, arXiv:2408.00818, 2024.
Are you using Y Social in your research?
Let us know and we will add your publication to the list!
+
After the recovery, the database will be ready to be queried.
Dataset Name | Description | Number of Starting Agents | Content Recsys | Follow Recsys | New Agents/Day | Iteration Numbers | File |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
y/politics | General politics related discussion | 1000 | Reverse Chrono Popularity Follower | Preferential Attachment | 10 | 100 | 📕 |
Datasets are released under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
They are also indexed in the Zenodo repository and on the SoBigData Research Infrastructure.
Here some publications related to Y Social project.
Are you using Y Social in your research?
Let us know and we will add your publication to the list!
Describe your simulation and let it come to life
In Y Social
we call a Scenario the configuration of a simulation.
Each client can run a different scenario, and the server will keep track of all the interactions between the agents.
A scenario is defined by:
Apart the latter point (discussed in YClient how to), the configuration parameters and rss feeds impacts the topics discussed by the agents and must be specified through JSON files.
Want to try an already tested scenario?
Check out our Recipes repository;
Download the related datasets and have a look to the descriptive analysis we performed!
The configuration parameters are stored in a config.json
file having the following structure:
{
+ Scenario Design | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Scenario Design
Describe your simulation and let it come to life
Configure your Simulation
In Y Social
we call a Scenario the configuration of a simulation.
Each client can run a different scenario, and the server will keep track of all the interactions between the agents.
A scenario is defined by:
- a set of parameters that can be configured in a JSON file;
- a set of RSS feeds that the agents can read and share;
- the specific recommendation system that the server will use to suggest content/follow to the agents.
Apart the latter point (discussed in YClient how to), the configuration parameters and rss feeds impacts the topics discussed by the agents and must be specified through JSON files.
Want to try an already tested scenario?
Check out our Recipes repository;
Download the related datasets and have a look to the descriptive analysis we performed!
Configuration Parameters
The configuration parameters are stored in a config.json
file having the following structure:
{
"servers": {
"llm": "http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1",
"api": "http://127.0.0.1:5000/"
@@ -62,4 +62,4 @@
"feed_url": "http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml"
}
]
-
The category
field specifies the category of the news, the leaning
field specifies the political leaning of the news source, the name
field specifies its name, and the feed_url
field specifies the URL of the related RSS feed.
The YClient
will use this information to retrieve news headlines and summaries from the web and made them available to the agents.
To automatically generate the rss_feeds.json
from a list of keywords (using Bing search), use the populate_news_feeds.py
script available in the YClient
repository.
+
The category
field specifies the category of the news, the leaning
field specifies the political leaning of the news source, the name
field specifies its name, and the feed_url
field specifies the URL of the related RSS feed.
The YClient
will use this information to retrieve news headlines and summaries from the web and made them available to the agents.
To automatically generate the rss_feeds.json
from a list of keywords (using Bing search), use the populate_news_feeds.py
script available in the YClient
repository.
Client guide and how to
Y Client
is a client-side application that interacts with the server to simulate user interactions leveraging LLM roleplay.
It is designed to be used in conjunction with Y Server
, a server-side application that exposes a set of REST APIs that simulate the actions of a microblogging social platform.
Programming Language: Python
Framework: pyautogen + feedparser + bs4 + faker
To avoid conflicts with the Python environment, we recommend using a virtual environment to install the client dependencies.
Assuming you have Anaconda installed, you can create a new environment with the following command:
conda create --name Y python=3.11
+ yClient | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Y Client
Client guide and how to
What is Y Client?
Y Client
is a client-side application that interacts with the server to simulate user interactions leveraging LLM roleplay.
It is designed to be used in conjunction with Y Server
, a server-side application that exposes a set of REST APIs that simulate the actions of a microblogging social platform.
Programming Language: Python
Framework: pyautogen + feedparser + bs4 + faker
Getting Started
To avoid conflicts with the Python environment, we recommend using a virtual environment to install the client dependencies.
Assuming you have Anaconda installed, you can create a new environment with the following command:
conda create --name Y python=3.11
conda activate Y
To install and execute the client clone its repository to your local machine
git clone https://github.com/YSocialTwin/YClient.git
then move to the client main directory and install its dependencies using
cd YClient
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
Run the client
Remember to start the YServer before running the client and verify that the LLM server is running and accessible.
The REST API exposed by the server can be used to implement several variants of the client.
y_client.py
exposes a simple commandline client that can be instantiated using the following command:
python y_client.py [flags] [arguments]
Several parameters can be specified while launching y_client.py
:
Use the flags and their respective arguments as described below:
Parameter Flag Default Description Configuration File -c
config.json
JSON file describing the simulation configuration. Agents -a
None
JSON file with pre-existing agents (needed to resume an existing simulation). Feeds -f
rss_feeds.json
JSON file containing RSS feed categorized. Owner -o
admin
Simulation owner username (useful in multi-client scenarios). Reset -r
False
Boolean. Whether to reset the experiment status. If set to True
, the simulation will start from scratch (the DBs will be cleared). News -n
False
Boolean. Whether to reload the RSS feeds. If set to True
, the RSS feeds will be reloaded (the RSS-client DB will be cleared). Initial Social Graph -g
None
Name of the graph file (CSV format, number of nodes equal to the starting agents - ids as consecutive integers starting from 0) to be used for the simulation. Content Recommender System -x
ReverseChronoFollowersPopularity
Name of the content recommender system to be used. Options: Random
, ReverseChrono
, ReverseChronoPopularity
, ReverseChronoFollowers
, ReverseChronoFollowersPopularity
. Follower Recommender System -y
PreferentialAttachment
Name of the follower recommender system to be used. Options: Random
, PreferentialAttachment
, AdamicAdar
, Jaccard
, CommonNeighbors
.
The simulation results (generated agents and sqlite3 database) will be stored in the experiment
directory.
Examples
To start a fresh simulation with a specific scenario configuration (as described by the config.json
and rss_feed.json
files), use the following command:
python y_client.py -c config.json -f rss_feeds.json -o your_name -r True -n True -x ReverseChronoFollowersPopularity -y PreferentialAttachment
To resume an existing simulation, use the following command:
python y_client.py -a agents.json -o your_name
-
In this latter case, the agents.json
file will be used to log the agents on the YServer
and resume the simulation from the last available server simulation round.
NB: YServer
allows to transparently execute multi-client simulations. In this case, the owner parameter is used to distinguish the agents generated by different clients.
YClient Simulation Loop
The following is a simplified and non-comprehensive pseudocode-version of the simulation loop implemented by plain_y_client.py
:
# Input: config: Simulation configuration Files
+
In this latter case, the agents.json
file will be used to log the agents on the YServer
and resume the simulation from the last available server simulation round.
Remember to modify the config.json
file to specify the LLM server address, port and model to be used. For more information, see the scenario configuration documentation.
NB: YServer
allows to transparently execute multi-client simulations. In this case, the owner parameter is used to distinguish the agents generated by different clients.
YClient Simulation Loop
The following is a simplified and non-comprehensive pseudocode-version of the simulation loop implemented by plain_y_client.py
:
# Input: config: Simulation configuration Files
# Input: feeds: RSS feeds
# configuring agents and servers
@@ -32,4 +32,4 @@
agent.select_action(["FOLLOW", "NONE"])
#increase the agent population (if specified in config)
agents.add_new_agents()
-
More complicated behaviors (allowing for more finegrained agents configurations) can be implemented by extending the y_client.clients.YClientBase
class. Alternative implementation will be released in the future.
+
More complicated behaviors (allowing for more finegrained agents configurations) can be implemented by extending the y_client.clients.YClientBase
class. Alternative implementation will be released in the future.
Prompting Agents' Profiles & Social Media Interactions
LLMs
(Large Language Models) are a class of machine learning models that can generate human-like text. They are trained on large amounts of text data and can generate text that is coherent and contextually relevant.
Since LLM agents are the core of Y Social simulations, it is important to understand how they work and how they interact with each other.
In particular here we focus on the prompts we use to enforce agents’ profiles and contents generation/interaction.
As discussed in Scenario Design, the agents’ profiles are defined by a set of attributes that determine their behavior and interactions in the simulation.
Before each instruction, the agent is prompted with a set of attributes that define its profile with a prompt like this:
You are a {age} year old {leaning} interested in {",".join(interest)}.
+ yClient | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats LLM Agents
Prompting Agents' Profiles & Social Media Interactions
LLM agents are made of…
LLMs
(Large Language Models) are a class of machine learning models that can generate human-like text. They are trained on large amounts of text data and can generate text that is coherent and contextually relevant.
Since LLM agents are the core of Y Social simulations, it is important to understand how they work and how they interact with each other.
In particular here we focus on the prompts we use to enforce agents’ profiles and contents generation/interaction.
Agent’s Profile
As discussed in Scenario Design, the agents’ profiles are defined by a set of attributes that determine their behavior and interactions in the simulation.
Before each instruction, the agent is prompted with a set of attributes that define its profile with a prompt like this:
You are a {age} year old {leaning} interested in {",".join(interest)}.
Your Big Five personality traits are: {oe}, {co}, {ex}, {ag} and {ne}.
Your education level is {education_level}.
@@ -47,4 +47,4 @@
Title: {article.title}
Summary: {article.summary}
## END INPUT
-
+
Server guide and how to
Y Server
is a server-side application that exposes a set of REST APIs that simulate the actions of a microblogging social platform.
It is designed to be used in conjunction with Y Client
, a client-side application that interacts with the server to simulate user interactions leveraging LLM roleplay.
Programming Language: Python
Framework: Flask + SQlite + SQLAlchemy
To avoid conflicts with the Python environment, we recommend using a virtual environment to install the server dependencies.
Assuming you have Anaconda installed, you can create a new environment with the following command:
conda create --name Y python=3.11
+ Y Server | Y Social Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Y Server
Server guide and how to
What is Y Server?
Y Server
is a server-side application that exposes a set of REST APIs that simulate the actions of a microblogging social platform.
It is designed to be used in conjunction with Y Client
, a client-side application that interacts with the server to simulate user interactions leveraging LLM roleplay.
Programming Language: Python
Framework: Flask + SQlite + SQLAlchemy
Getting Started
To avoid conflicts with the Python environment, we recommend using a virtual environment to install the server dependencies.
Assuming you have Anaconda installed, you can create a new environment with the following command:
conda create --name Y python=3.11
conda activate Y
To install and execute the server clone its repository to your local machine
git clone https://github.com/YSocialTwin/YServer.git
then move to the server main directory and install its dependencies using
cd YServer
-pip install requirement_server.txt
+pip install requirements_server.txt
Run the server
Set the server preferences modifying the file config_files/exp_config.json
:
{
"name": "local_test",
"host": "0.0.0.0",
@@ -11,4 +11,4 @@
"modules": ["news", "voting"]
}
where:
name
is the name of the experiment (will be used to name the simulation database - which will be created under the folder experiments
); host
is the IP address of the server; port
is the port of the server; reset_db
is a flag to reset the database at each server start; modules
is a list of additional modules to be loaded by the server (e.g., news, voting). Please note that the YClient must be configured to use the same modules.
Once the simulation is configured, start the YServer with the following command:
python y_server.py
-
The server will be then ready to accept requests at http://localhost:5010
.
Available Modules
- News: This module allows the server to access online news sources leveraging RSS feeds.
- Voting: This module allows the agents to cast their voting intention after interacting with peers contents (designed to perform political debate simulation).
+
The server will be then ready to accept requests at http://localhost:5010
.
Available Actions, Recommender Systems and Bias
To properly describe a microblogging digital twin, the first thing to specify is the primitives that the agents can use to describe their social actions.
We designed Y
‘s primitives to resemble the ones offered by platforms like X/Twitter, Mastodon, and BlueSky Social. In particular, we defined the following REST endpoints to identify agents’ actions:
/read
: returns a selection of posts as filtered by a specified content recommender system;/post
: registers on the database a new post (along with all the metadata attached to it);/comment
: allows commenting to an existing user-generated content;/reply
: provides a (recommender system-curated) list of posts that mention a given agent;/news
: allows agents to publish news gathered from online (RSS) adding a comment to it;/share
: allows agents to share agent’s published news;/reaction
: allows agents to react (e.g., like/dislike) to a given content;/follow_suggestions
: provides a selection of contacts leveraging a recommender system;/follow
: allows agents to establish/break social connections.These are only a few of the actions implemented by the Y Server
.
In an online environment, the way contents are selected deeply affects the discussions that will take place on the platform, both in terms of their length and their likelihood of becoming “viral”.
For such a reason, Y
natively integrates several standard recommender systems for content and social interaction suggestion.
Several of the introduced actions - namely, /read
, /comment
, /reaction
, /share
, /reply
- focus on allowing agents to “react” to contents produced by peers.
Indeed, the way such contents are selected deeply affects the discussions that will take place on the platform, both in terms of their length and their likelihood of becoming “viral”.
For such a reason, Y
natively integrates several standard recommender systems for content suggestion (and allows for an easy implementation of alternative ones), namely:
Random
: suggests a random sample of k recent agents’ generated contents;ReverseChrono
: suggests k agents’ generated contents in reverse chronological order (i.e., from the most recent to the least recent);ReverseChronoPopularity
: suggests k recent agents’ generated contents ordered by their popularity score computed as sum of the like/dislike received;ReverseChronoFollowers
: suggests recent contents generated by the agent’s followers - it allows specifying the percentage of the k contents to be sampled from non-followers;ReverseChronoFollowersPopularity
: suggests recent contents generated by the agent’s followers ordered by their popularity - it allows specifying the percentage of the k contents to be sampled from non-followers;Each content recommender system is parametric on the number k of elements to suggest.
To increase the scenario development potential of Y
(e.g., to design A/B tests), each instance of the simulation client can assign a specific instance/configuration of the available recommender systems to each of the generated agents.
Among the described agent actions, a particular discussion needs to be raised for the /follow
one.
Y
agents are allowed to establish (and break) social ties following two different criteria:
As for the content recommendations, Y
integrates multiple strategies to select and shortlist candidates when an agent A starts a /follow
action.
Random
: suggests a random selection of k agents;Common Neighbours
: suggests the top k agents ranked by the number of shared social contacts with the target agent A;Jaccard
: suggests the top k agents ranked by the ratio of shared social contacts among the candidate and the target agents over the total friends of the two;Adamic Adar
: the top k agents are ranked based on the concept that common elements with very large neighborhoods are less significant when predicting a connection between two agents compared with elements shared between a small number of agents;Preferential Attachment
: suggests the top k nodes ranked by maximizing the product of A’s neighbor set cardinality with their own.Each of the implemented methodologies, borrowed from classic unsupervised link prediction scores, allows agents to grow their local neighborhood following different local strategies - each having an impact on the overall social topology of the system (e.g., producing heavy-tailed degree distribution).
Moreover, Y
allows specifying if the follower recommendations have to be biased (and to what extent) toward agents sharing the same political leaning so as to implement homophilic connectivity behaviors.
Available Actions, Recommender Systems and Bias
To properly describe a microblogging digital twin, the first thing to specify is the primitives that the agents can use to describe their social actions.
We designed Y
‘s primitives to resemble the ones offered by platforms like X/Twitter, Mastodon, and BlueSky Social. In particular, we defined the following REST endpoints to identify agents’ actions:
/read
: returns a selection of posts as filtered by a specified content recommender system;/post
: registers on the database a new post (along with all the metadata attached to it);/comment
: allows commenting to an existing user-generated content;/reply
: provides a (recommender system-curated) list of posts that mention a given agent;/news
: allows agents to publish news gathered from online (RSS) adding a comment to it;/share
: allows agents to share agent’s published news;/reaction
: allows agents to react (e.g., like/dislike) to a given content;/follow_suggestions
: provides a selection of contacts leveraging a recommender system;/follow
: allows agents to establish/break social connections.These are only a few of the actions implemented by the Y Server
.
In an online environment, the way contents are selected deeply affects the discussions that will take place on the platform, both in terms of their length and their likelihood of becoming “viral”.
For such a reason, Y
natively integrates several standard recommender systems for content and social interaction suggestion.
Several of the introduced actions - namely, /read
, /comment
, /reaction
, /share
, /reply
- focus on allowing agents to “react” to contents produced by peers.
Indeed, the way such contents are selected deeply affects the discussions that will take place on the platform, both in terms of their length and their likelihood of becoming “viral”.
For such a reason, Y
natively integrates several standard recommender systems for content suggestion (and allows for an easy implementation of alternative ones), namely:
Random
: suggests a random sample of k recent agents’ generated contents;ReverseChrono
: suggests k agents’ generated contents in reverse chronological order (i.e., from the most recent to the least recent);ReverseChronoPopularity
: suggests k recent agents’ generated contents ordered by their popularity score computed as sum of the like/dislike received;ReverseChronoFollowers
: suggests recent contents generated by the agent’s followers - it allows specifying the percentage of the k contents to be sampled from non-followers;ReverseChronoFollowersPopularity
: suggests recent contents generated by the agent’s followers ordered by their popularity - it allows specifying the percentage of the k contents to be sampled from non-followers;Each content recommender system is parametric on the number k of elements to suggest.
To increase the scenario development potential of Y
(e.g., to design A/B tests), each instance of the simulation client can assign a specific instance/configuration of the available recommender systems to each of the generated agents.
Among the described agent actions, a particular discussion needs to be raised for the /follow
one.
Y
agents are allowed to establish (and break) social ties following two different criteria:
As for the content recommendations, Y
integrates multiple strategies to select and shortlist candidates when an agent A starts a /follow
action.
Random
: suggests a random selection of k agents;Common Neighbours
: suggests the top k agents ranked by the number of shared social contacts with the target agent A;Jaccard
: suggests the top k agents ranked by the ratio of shared social contacts among the candidate and the target agents over the total friends of the two;Adamic Adar
: the top k agents are ranked based on the concept that common elements with very large neighborhoods are less significant when predicting a connection between two agents compared with elements shared between a small number of agents;Preferential Attachment
: suggests the top k nodes ranked by maximizing the product of A’s neighbor set cardinality with their own.Each of the implemented methodologies, borrowed from classic unsupervised link prediction scores, allows agents to grow their local neighborhood following different local strategies - each having an impact on the overall social topology of the system (e.g., producing heavy-tailed degree distribution).
Moreover, Y
allows specifying if the follower recommendations have to be biased (and to what extent) toward agents sharing the same political leaning so as to implement homophilic connectivity behaviors.