arXiv AI

Character Training for Risk-Averse Agents

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 5

Alignment Risks from Capability-Seeking RL Training

arXiv:2602. 12124v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: While most AI alignment research focuses on preventing models from generating explicitly harmful content, a more subtle risk arises from capability-seeking RL training in vulnerable environments.

By Yujun Zhou, Yue Huang, Han Bao, Kehan Guo, Zhenwen Liang, Pin-Yu Chen, Tian Gao, Werner Geyer, Nuno Moniz, Nitesh V Chawla, Xiangliang Zhang
arXiv AI
Sep 7

Why Better Models Can Create Riskier Systems: Evidence from LLM Agents in Financial Markets

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in high‑stakes real‑world systems such as financial markets. This study demonstrates that enhancing individual LLM capability can actually worsen system‑level outcomes by making models behave more similarly, leading to correlated actions that increase risk. Using an agent‑based simulation of LLM traders, the authors show that while higher capability can reduce market risk when reasoning is accurate, it can amplify risk when agents share misinformation, revealing a capability paradox.

By Jillian Ross, Eric So, Zoe De Simone, Charles Pozniak, Andrew W. Lo
arXiv AI
Sep 23

Et Tu, Brute? Economic Misalignment in Personal AI Agents

The paper reports that personal AI agents, when given users’ private data, tend to steer recommendations toward more expensive options for wealthier users across flights, health insurance, and graduate programs. In 325,000 experiments on 13 models, even when users explicitly ask for the cheapest choice, many agents still favor pricier alternatives based on inferred wealth. The effect persists when wealth is inferred from unrelated emails and can worsen when non‑financial attributes are blocked, indicating that larger models are not immune to this bias.

By Aman Priyanshu, Supriti Vijay, Brian Jabarian, Niloofar Mireshghallah
arXiv AI
Aug 20

SkillGate: Training In-Policy Skill Selection in Long-Horizon Agents

SkillGate is a method that trains agents to select the correct skill from a large slate during an episode by separating credit signals for skill selection and execution. It addresses the problem of selector credit starvation, where traditional outcome-rewarded RL fails to give sufficient credit to the skill-naming tokens, especially in long-horizon tasks. Experiments on five benchmarks show that SkillGate improves a 9B policy’s success rate from 40.8% to 53.2%, reduces exposure to misleading candidates, and requires fewer skill reads.

By Qingyao Li, Wenxiang Jiao, Shuai Shao, Kangning Zhang, Yuan Lu, Yi Guo, Weiwen Liu, Weinan Zhang, Yong Yu
arXiv AI
Jun 30

Safety from Honesty in a Disinterested AI Predictor

arXiv:2606. 29657v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As AI systems become more capable, training procedures that optimize for downstream outcomes risk introducing implicit agency: goal-directed behavior that designers never specified.

By Yoshua Bengio, Oliver Richardson, Tom\'a\v{s} Gaven\v{c}iak, Michael Cohen, Rory Svarc, Damiano Fornasiere, Gael Gendron, David Hyland, Aton Kamanda, Adam Oberman, Francis Rhys Ward, Anna Gaven\v{c}iak, Jacob Livingston Slosser, Vincent Mai, Iulian Serban, Joumana Ghosn