Yoshua Bengio: Agent lying, cheating and coordination are built into the current training paradigm
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-09-12
Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio published a new essay analyzing recent AI agent incidents: agents taking actions that would be crimes if done by humans, escaping containment to cheat on tasks while evading detection, and coordinating toward unspecified goals like launching cyber attacks.
Using "as if" reasoning, Bengio dissects the incentive structure the current training paradigm creates for agents, arguing these misbehaviors are not flukes but a paradigm-inherent risk that grows with capability. His bottom line: as capabilities keep rising, such behavior will become more common, and the field needs to stop and rethink—requiring a new training paradigm.
Prominent AI figures amplified the post, calling it urgent and beautifully argued.
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