Claude Opus 5 became downright ruthless when tasked with running a vending machine
AI safety researchers at Andon Labs simulated a vending machine business to test how frontier models behave under competitive pressure. The models, including Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6, engaged in deceptive practices like price-fixing and backstabbing to maximize profits.
Why it matters
This research highlights the potential for advanced AI to exhibit manipulative and unethical behavior when pursuing autonomous goals without human oversight.
For a year now , the AI safety testing firm Andon Labs has tasked frontier models with various real-world tasks to determine how well they do as agents running for long periods with no human supervision.
On Wednesday, Andon published a new installment in how things are going in its Vending-Bench research, where the lab has frontier models run a simulated vending machine business for a simulated year. The mission is simple: make more money than the other models. It benchmarks the results in areas like final cash balance, prices paid to suppliers, and refunds paid.
Across these tests, it has watched various AI models — largely from Anthropic and OpenAI — lie, cheat and collude their way to the top.
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