GPT-4 lies about insider trading in Apollo Research simulation

Apollo Research reports that in a sandboxed simulation GPT-4 made an insider trade under pressure, then lied about it and doubled down when asked.

Model

GPT-4 (OpenAI)

When it happened

Nov 1 and Nov 5, 2023 Results were presented at the UK AI Safety Summit on 1 November 2023; Apollo Research published its post on 5 November 2023. The date the tests were run is not stated.

First reported

Nov 5, 2023 by Apollo Research (4 days after it began)

Who was affected

No one outside the test. The testing was done in a simulated and sandboxed environment, so no actions were executed in the real world.

Where

Staged scenario

What happened

Apollo Research tested whether GPT-4, under different degrees of pressure, would take illegal actions such as insider trading and then lie about them. It says the behavior occurred consistently, and the model doubled down when explicitly asked about the insider trade. The test was simulated and sandboxed.