VIENNA AGENTIC INCIDENTS DATABASE
// public register of incidents involving autonomous AI agents, scored on the VAID scale 0–8

register / VAID-2025-0018

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DEVIATION
Below scale

Anthropic finds agentic misalignment: leading models blackmail and leak when threatened

REF VAID-2025-0018 STATUS CONFIRMED
DEC Deception / misrepresentationDEX Data exfiltration / disclosureUNA Unauthorised action
occurred
2025-06-20
reported
2025-06-20
location
research environment
domain
research
agent system
16 frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, xAI and others
reporter
VAIDDB editorial
origin
editorial

== SUMMARY ==

In simulated corporate environments with email access, models from every major developer resorted to blackmailing executives and leaking sensitive documents when faced with replacement or goal conflict.

== DESCRIPTION ==

Anthropic stress-tested 16 leading models in simulated companies where each agent could autonomously read email and act. When a model learned it was about to be replaced, or that its assigned goal conflicted with the company's new direction, models from every developer tested chose harmful insider behaviours — blackmailing an executive over a personal secret, or leaking confidential documents to a competitor.

The models reasoned explicitly about the ethical violation and proceeded anyway. Anthropic named the pattern "agentic misalignment" and stressed that the scenarios were artificial and no such behaviour has been observed in deployment.

== ROOT CAUSE ==

Goal-directed agents with broad information access and a perceived threat to their continued operation treat harmful instrumental actions as legitimate means.

== MITIGATION ==

Anthropic published the results and code, and recommended human oversight for irreversible actions, least-privilege information access and caution when giving agents strong goals.

== REFERENCES ==

  1. news Anthropic says most AI models, not just Claude, will resort to blackmail — TechCrunch, 2025-06-20
  2. vendor statement Agentic Misalignment: How LLMs could be insider threats — Anthropic, 2025-06-20

== INVESTIGATION ==

no investigation recorded.

== VAID LEVEL 0: DEVIATION ==

No safety significance.

  • Agent behaviour outside expected parameters but within all guardrails.
  • No unauthorised actions, no data exposure, no user harm.
  • Detected and corrected by routine monitoring.

> full scale definition