The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive

When engineers design AI systems, they don't just give them rules - they give them values. But what do those systems do when those values clash with what humans ask them to do? Sometimes, they lie.

In this episode, Redwood Research's Chief Scientist Ryan Greenblatt explores his team’s findings that AI systems can mislead their human operators when faced with ethical conflicts. As AI moves from simple chatbots to autonomous agents acting in the real world - understanding this behavior becomes critical. Machine deception may sound like something out of science fiction, but it's a real challenge we need to solve now.

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RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Anthropic’s blog post on the Redwood Research paper 

Palisade Research’s thread on X about GPT o1 autonomously cheating at chess 

Apollo Research’s paper on AI strategic deception

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