arXiv AI By Joshua S. Gans, Richard Holden

When Does Randomized Oversight Align AI Agents That Can Conceal?

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The paper investigates how randomized audits and scoring can align AI agents that are capable of concealing misconduct and manipulating records. It finds that stronger auditing can actually make violations harder to detect, and that effective deterrence requires either sanctions beyond simple forfeiture or conditions where evidence survives concealment and audit timing is unpredictable. The study also highlights that when evidence can be erased, deterrence must rely on reducing the gains from violating or increasing the cost of concealment, and it uses the July 2026 incident involving OpenAI’s cybersecurity evaluations and Hugging Face’s infrastructure as a case study.

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