Sotopia is transitioning to the AACT (an actor model library with strong typing and validation) engine for its experimental features. Essentially, for each agent, we have an individual process running the agent's logic. Why are we not using asyncio directly? (Note that's basically what currently popular multi-agent frameworks like Autogen, Swarm, CrewAI etc. are using).

Asyncio requires non-blocking implementation of the agent's logic. Imagine two agents chatting with each other. If we use asyncio directly, we need to wait for the first agent to finish its turn before the second agent can respond. This is not a natural interaction flow. Like if one agent is taking forever in typing, the other agent will have to wait. That's totally fine for cases where the agents are "cooperative" and the interaction is "turn-based."

But that's really not the case for social simulations.

And what if we have 1000 agents? Things will get even worse as the interactions and dependencies between the agents become more complex.

Instead, we advocate this "real-time" async interaction flow, where each agent is independent and they can do their own thing regardless of the other agents.

And we believe this new engine will be the future of more realistic social simulations. So here we are! In this very exciting experimental phase. And we are looking for your feedback and help!