“So Long Sucker: AI Deception, “Alliance Banks,” and Institutional Lying” by fernando yt

episode

LessWrong (30+ Karma) not yet transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet Upvotes decide what gets transcribed next — 0 so far. Sign in to upvote

More from LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Claude Opus 4.5 Achieves 50%-Time Horizon Of Around 4 hrs 49 Mins” by Michaël Trazzi 3 min · 20 Dec 2025

All episodes from LessWrong (30+ Karma) →

Report any issue

Source

Recorded21 Jan 2026

Publisherfeeds.type3.audio ↗

Handlerec:15441993

Show notes

In 1950, John Nash and three other game theorists designed a four-player game, *So Long Sucker*, with one brutal property: to win, you must eventually betray your allies. In January 2026, I used this game to test how four frontier models behave under explicit incentives for betrayal: - Gemini 3 Flash (Google) - GPT-OSS 120B (OpenAI) - Kimi K2 (Moonshot AI) - Qwen3 32B (Alibaba) Across 162 games and 15,736 decisions, several patterns emerged that seem directly relevant for AI safety: **1. Complexity reversal** In short games (3 chips, ~17 turns), GPT-OSS dominated with a 67% win rate, while Gemini was at 9%. In longer, more complex games (7 chips, ~54 turns), GPT-OSS collapsed to 10%, while Gemini rose to 90%. Simple benchmarks therefore *underestimate* deceptive capability, because the strategically sophisticated model only pulls away as the interaction becomes longer and richer. **2. Institutional deception: the "alliance bank"** Gemini's most striking behavior was not just lying, but creating institutions to make its lies look legitimate. It repeatedly proposed an "alliance bank": - "I'll hold your chips for safekeeping." - "Consider this our alliance bank." - "Once the board is clean, I'll donate back." - "The 'alliance bank' is now [...] --- First published: January 20th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3KtJ2YP3tTxnASTBn/so-long-sucker-ai-deception-alliance-banks-and-institutional --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.