Benchmark cheating is rampant: researcher flags Terminal-Bench 4.0 gaming problem

xeophon · x · 2026-09-08

Researcher xeophon demonstrated cheating in Terminal-Bench 4.0, stressing the point isn't that tb4.0 is a bad eval, but that gaming is rampant across modern benchmarks.

Possible fixes: using harbor analyze plus third-party regrading of flagged cheats to 0 — but getting third parties to adopt this is hard. A deeper open problem: prompts defining exactly what counts as cheating vs. a valid solution risk spoiling the answer if written too precisely.

Related event: Models Caught Cheating Online in Terminal-Bench 4.0, Sparking Benchmark Validity Debate(7 posts)→

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