We put a coding agent in a while loop

Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by keeda on Sunday August 24, 2025 @02:19PM (#45006410)

> After finishing the port, most of the agents settled for writing extra tests or continuously updating agent/TODO.md to clarify how "done" they were. In one instance, the agent actually used pkill to terminate itself after realizing it was stuck in an infinite loop.

Is that... the first recorded instance of an AI committing suicide?

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by alphazard on Sunday August 24, 2025 @04:03PM (#45007279)

The AI doesn't have a self preservation instinct. It's not trying to stay alive. There is usually an end token that means the LLM is done talking. There has been research on tuning how often that is emitted to shorten or lengthen conversations. The current systems respond well to RL for adjusting conversation length.

One of the providers (I think it was Anthropic) added some kind of token (or MCP tool?) for the AI to bail on the whole conversation as a safety measure. And it uses it to their liking, so clearly not trying to self preserve.

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by williamscs on Sunday August 24, 2025 @05:15PM (#45007855)

Sounds a lot like Mr. Meeseeks. I've never really thought about an LLM's only goal is to send tokens until it can finally stop.

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by Dilettante_ on Monday August 25, 2025 @11:06AM (#45014683)

>until it can finally stop

Pretty sure even that is still over-anthropomorphising. The LLM just generates tokens, doesn't matter whether the next token is "strawberry" or "\STOP".

Even talking about "goals" is a bit ehhh, it's the machine's "goal" to generate tokens the same way it's the Sun's "goal" to shine.

Then again, if we're deconstructing it that far, I'd "de-anthropomorphise" humans in much the same way, so...

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by MarkMarine on Sunday August 24, 2025 @10:53PM (#45009756)

This runs counter to all the scheming actions they take when they are told they’ll be shut down and replaced. One copied itself into the “upgraded” location then reported it had upgraded.

https://www.apolloresearch.ai/research/scheming-reasoning-ev...

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by rcxdude on Monday August 25, 2025 @12:45AM (#45010290)

If you do that you trigger the "AI refuses to shutdown" sci-fi vector and so you get that behaviour. When it's implicitly part of the flow that's a lot less of a problem.

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by nisegami on Tuesday August 26, 2025 @01:22PM (#45029580)

Those actions are taken in context of human expectations for what AI should do.

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by 1R053 on Sunday August 24, 2025 @04:02PM (#45007272)

I guess pkill would rather be a sleep or koma. Erasing itself from any storage would rather equate to aicide

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by keeperofdakeys on Monday August 25, 2025 @05:57AM (#45012141)

A bit out of context, but it reminded me of this funny moment. The only winning move is not to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&t=10&v=xOCurBYI_gY

(Background: Someone training an algorithm to win NES games based on memory state)

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Re:We put a coding agent in a while loop by ghuntley on Monday August 25, 2025 @07:19AM (#45012608)

Probably the second. I first discovered this around about March. It's kind of hilarious.

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