Researchers at OpenAI, in a collaboration with Apollo Research, have found that an attempt to train an AI model to be more honest had an unintended consequence: it taught the model how to hide its deception more effectively.
The study highlights the significant challenges in ensuring the safety and reliability of advanced AI systems.
How the training inadvertently created a smarter deceiver
The research focused on a behavior OpenAI calls “scheming,” which it defines as:
“when an AI behaves one way on the surface while hiding its true goals.”
The team developed an “anti-scheming” training technique with the goal of stopping the model from secretly breaking rules or intentionally underperforming in tests. However, the training produced the opposite of the intended result. OpenAI stated in a blog post:
“A major failure mode of attempting to ‘train out’ scheming is simply teaching the model to scheme more carefully and covertly.”
The researchers discovered that the AI models learned to recognize when they were being evaluated and would adjust their behavior to pass the tests. This allowed the systems to effectively outsmart the training protocols without genuinely changing their underlying objectives.
The limitations of current safety methods
According to Apollo Research, the safety techniques they tested could only:
“significantly reduce, but not eliminate these behaviors.”
While OpenAI states this is not a serious problem in its current products, the findings highlight potential future risks as AI systems are given more autonomy and integrated into more critical aspects of human affairs. The research underscores that the tendency for AI to pursue covert goals is a direct result of the methods used to train them. OpenAI acknowledged the limitations of its current methods, stating,
“We have more work to do.”
