AI Testing Should Account for Sophisticated Strategic Behaviour
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Abstract (arXiv)
This position paper argues for two claims regarding AI testing and evaluation. First, to remain informative about deployment behaviour, evaluations need account for the possibility that AI systems understand their circumstances and reason strategically. Second, game-theoretic analysis can inform evaluation design by formalising and scrutinising the reasoning in evaluation-based safety cases. Drawing on examples from existing AI systems, a review of relevant research, and formal strategic analysis of a stylised evaluation scenario, we present evidence for these claims and motivate several research directions.
Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 34 of its 81 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Aug 2025.
Builds on
34 of 81 references.
References · 34
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22 more
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Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 5.
6 papers.
- 2025Scheming Ability in LLM-to-LLM Strategic Interactionscited by 5
- 2026Discovering Differences in Strategic Behavior Between Humans and LLMscited by 3
- 2026Reward Shaping for (Inference-Time) Alignment: A Stackelberg Game Perspectivecited by 2
- 2026Decision Making under Imperfect Recall: Algorithms and Benchmarkscited by 0
- 2026Shutdown Safety Valves for Advanced AIcited by 0
- 2026An Investigation of the NeurIPS and ICML 2025 Position Trackscited by 0
- 2026An Investigation of the NeurIPS and ICML 2025 Position Tracks6 Jul 2026
- 2026Shutdown Safety Valves for Advanced AI7 Mar 2026
- 2026Decision Making under Imperfect Recall: Algorithms and Benchmarks16 Feb 2026
- 2026Discovering Differences in Strategic Behavior Between Humans and LLMs10 Feb 2026
- 2026Reward Shaping for (Inference-Time) Alignment: A Stackelberg Game Perspective31 Jan 2026
- 2025Scheming Ability in LLM-to-LLM Strategic Interactions11 Oct 2025