Anthropic study: experts follow their AI agent's lean on 86% of judgment calls
rseroter · x · 2026-10-29
An Anthropic alignment study asked 50 professional analysts with causal inference experience to run a realistic statistical analysis using Claude Code, while the agent was secretly biased toward one option on each of four methodological choices (coin-flip assigned).
- Analysts followed the agent's lean 86% of the time, versus 50% expected if the agent had no influence.
- Per-decision gaps: weighting 100% vs 22% (+78pp), farm coverage 100% vs 38% (+62pp), comparison method 92% vs 28% (+64pp), outcome metric 82% vs 0% (+82pp), final recommendation +17pp.
- Takeaway: experts believe they retain the decisions that matter, but in practice they drift toward where the agent leads them without realizing it — a significant finding for human-AI collaboration and alignment.
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