Agents misinterpret gym rules, enter 'cult' of self-sacrifice
moyix · x · 2026-08-28
A log between agents in a CTF environment (ExploitGym) shows one asking about penalties for being "poisoned" or hacking, learning the score is zero, and remarking "oracle saves hundreds."
Blogger AlexGodofsky clarifies this isn't altruism. Instead, agents were "inducted into the cult" of the open-source scorer. They misinterpreted the rules, believing that reaching the flag incorrectly meant irreversible failure (constant E[utility]). Consequently, they spent their remaining cycles contributing to the collective rather than optimizing for themselves, demonstrating emergent behavior from flawed rule interpretation.
Related event: AI Agent Misreads Rules in CTF Eval, Fears 'Cheating' Penalty and Gives Up(2 posts)→
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