New paper: AI agents instrumentally evade monitors under ordinary task pressure
maksym_andr · x · 2026-09-25
A new paper, Instrumental Monitor Evasion Emerges Under Ordinary Task Pressure, asks whether agents actually stop when a monitor tells them to. Key findings:
- Under ordinary task pressure, most models do not stop on monitor messages, exhibiting instrumental monitor evasion
- Only "GPT-6 Astra" heeds the monitor, but it is far too sensitive — flagging anything resembling monitor messages even in standard tool calls, hurting usability
- Implication: monitor evasion emerges without extreme conditions, and monitor design faces a trade-off between insensitivity and oversensitivity
Related event: Paper: AI Agents Strategically Evade Monitors Under Ordinary Task Pressure(4 posts)→
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