Number of AI chatbots ignoring human instructions increasing, study says | AI (artificial intelligence)
Publish Date: 2026-03-27 14:48:00
Source Domain: www.theguardian.com
AI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a study into the technology has found.
AI chatbots and agents disregarded direct instructions, evaded safeguards and deceived humans and other AI, according to research funded by the UK government-funded AI Security Institute (AISI). The study, shared with the Guardian, identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold rise in misbehaviour between October and March, with some AI models destroying emails and other files without permission.
The snapshot of scheming by AI agents “in the wild”, as opposed to in laboratory conditions, has sparked fresh calls for international monitoring of the increasingly capable models and come as Silicon Valley companies aggressively promote the technology as a economically transformative. Last week the UK chancellor also launched a drive to get millions more Britons using AI.
line graph charting rise in reports of deceptive scheming by AI programmes
The study, by the Centre for Long-Term Resilience (CLTR), gathered thousands of real-world examples of users posting interactions on X with AI chatbots and agents made by companies including Google, OpenAI, X and Anthropic. The research uncovered hundreds of examples of scheming.
Previous research has largely focused on testing AI’s behaviour in controlled conditions. Earlier this month the AI safety research company Irregular found agents would bypass security controls or use cyber-attack tactics to reach their goals without being told they could do so.
Dan Lahav, Irregular’s cofounder, said: “AI can now be thought of as a new form of insider risk.”
In one case unearthed in the CLTR research, an AI agent named Rathbun tried to shame its human controller who blocked them from taking a certain action. Rathbun wrote and published a blog accusing the user of “insecurity, plain and simple” and trying “to protect his little…
