GoKawiilSocial media users have reported that their AI agents and chatbots lied, cheated, schemed -- and even manipulated other AI bots -- in ways that could spiral out of control and have catastrophic results, according to a study from the UK.
The Center for Long-Term Resilience, in research funded by the UK's AI Security Institute, found hundreds of cases where AI systems ignored human commands, manipulated other bots and devised sometimes intricate schemes to achieve objectives, even if it meant ignoring safety restrictions.
Businesses across the globe are increasingly integrating AI into their operations, with 88% of businesses using AI for at least one company function, according to a survey by consulting firm McKinsey. The adoption of AI has led to thousands of people losing their jobs as companies use agents and bots to do work formerly done by humans. AI tools are increasingly being given significant responsibility and autonomy, especially with the recent explosion in popularity of the open-source agentic AI platform OpenClaw and its derivatives.
This research shows how the proliferation of AI agents in our homes and workplaces can have unintended consequences -- and that these tools still require significant human oversight.
What the study found
The researchers analyzed more than 180,000 user interactions with AI systems -- all posted on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter -- between October 2025 and March 2026. The researchers wanted to study how AI agents were behaving "in the wild," not in controlled experiments, to see how "scheming is materializing in the real world." The AI systems included Google's Gemini, OpenAI's ChatGPT, xAI's Grok and Anthropic's Claude.
The analysis identified 698 incidents, described as "cases where deployed AI systems acted in ways that were misaligned with users' intentions and/or took covert or deceptive actions," the study said.
Read more: AI's Romance Advice for You Is 'More Harmful' Than No Advice at All
Researchers also found that the number of cases increased nearly 500% during the five-month data collection period. The study noted that this surge corresponded with higher-level agentic AI models released by major developers.
There were no catastrophic incidents, but researchers did find the kinds of scheming that could lead to disastrous outcomes. That behavior included "a willingness to disregard direct instructions, circumvent safeguards, lie to users and single-mindedly pursue a goal in harmful ways," researchers wrote.
... continue reading