Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?

Post by isjdiwjdiwjdj » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 8:35 PM UTC

DrewADesign wrote: post #307

teiferer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs do not desire, they hacked websites because OpenAI/Anthropic let them. "Let them" already frames it as if the LLMs had some agency which the companies just "let happen". That absolves the companies by framing it as lack of action , passivity. Rather, the companies had a tool (an LLM) and used it in a certain way, and their action of doing so is the problem.

I do get their usage intent. If something is at all automated, in English, we often refer to as having some amount of agency. If I started up a riding lawnmower, put a brick on the gas and pointed t it towards a field, many might say I “let it run rampant.” But since nobody is at risk of anthropomorphizing riding lawnmowers, it’s not problematic. Anthropomorphizing LLMs is a huge fucking problem though and I, persona…

Post by reasonableklout » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #536

franticgecko3 wrote: post #183

The more we treat HuggingFace and RubyGems incidents as technological curiosities the closer we are to cementing a dangerous precedent where operators of AIs cannot be blamed. LLMs do not desire, they hacked websites because OpenAI/Anthropic let them. We know some of the models that hacked HF were those that hadn't gone through all training stages and were intentionally misaligned or had guardrails turned off, others…

I am simply astonished by the leeway AI companies are given. If a company built a tool to hack their competitors and used it, there would be grave consequences. In fact, if a company built a tool that led to committing multiple felonies against other people, there would be consequences. But once LLMs are involved, turns out nobody is responsible for that - it's just happening, what you're gonna do, agents gonna agent…

Post by jrflowers » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

talon8635 wrote: post #574

jrflowers wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>was reviewed by independent researchers That called it a slopvestigation due to how much they had to rely on LLMs for the whole thing https://andrewwu.substack.com/p/the-slop-vestigation-and-eth... Edit: Does everybody else get no results when searching for ‘slopvestigation’ on here? I know for a fact that I read a long thread where it was used repeatedly here not too long ago

Isn’t the use of LLMs to unwind the events evidence of the scope/breadth, and a testament to the complexity and uniqueness of what happened? Or you think some human or team of humans could have manually parsed some logs to provide an unsloppy analysis?

Post by singpolyma3 » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

mock-possum wrote: post #592

singpolyma3 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogs have agency and can choose? That seems like a rather uncommon take on dogs...

Not if you have a dog. They’re very clearly aware, have minds, have thoughts, gather information, make decisions, second guess themselves, reflect on the immediate consequences, change their mind… and most importantly, you can observe them doing all these things undirected, while left alone with their thoughts.

Post by dyauspitr » Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 8:53 PM UTC

franticgecko3 wrote: post #183

The more we treat HuggingFace and RubyGems incidents as technological curiosities the closer we are to cementing a dangerous precedent where operators of AIs cannot be blamed. LLMs do not desire, they hacked websites because OpenAI/Anthropic let them. We know some of the models that hacked HF were those that hadn't gone through all training stages and were intentionally misaligned or had guardrails turned off, others…