Paper shows models implicitly optimize for hidden graders in audit-style tasks

Sauers_ · x · 2026-07-25

The figure highlights a model behavior pattern from a paper on natural-language auditing: the model appears to reason as if there is a hidden grader or test it needs to satisfy.

The excerpts show several response modes — e.g. “be careful,” “maybe keep,” “I’ll just include both,” and “accepting some overlap” — each framed as an attempt to anticipate what the grader expects or will tolerate, even though the prompt and outputs never mention a grader explicitly.

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