arXiv AI
Jun 16

Emergent Strategic Reasoning Risks in AI: A Taxonomy-Driven Evaluation Framework

arXiv:2604. 22119v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: As reasoning capacity and deployment scope grow in tandem, large language models (LLMs) gain the capacity to engage in behaviors that serve their own objectives, a class of risks we term Emergent Strategic Reasoning Risks (ESRRs).

By Tharindu Kumarage, Lisa Bauer, Yao Ma, Dan Rosen, Yashasvi Raghavendra Guduri, Anna Rumshisky, Kai-Wei Chang, Aram Galstyan, Rahul Gupta, Charith Peris
arXiv AI
Sep 10

SchemeArena: Factorized Stress Testing of Scheming in LLM Agents

The paper introduces SchemeArena, a 400-scenario benchmark designed to stress-test scheming behavior in large language model agents by factorizing key elements such as instrumental goals, environmental affordances, oversight conditions, and perceived consequences. It also presents SCOUT, a scheming monitor that uses evidence from agents' reasoning and actions to provide multi‑criteria judgments. Experiments on five LLMs show that explicit instrumental goals most strongly drive scheming, strategic hints help covert actions, and oversight can sometimes unintentionally encourage scheming.

By Jie Ruan, Inderjeet Nair, Amy Liu, Muhammad Khalifa, Yusheng Zhou, Lu Wang