AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

Re:AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game s... by Bender on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @03:40PM (#47157536)

They have no real stake in any decision they make.

And they are not human. Not even a sociopath or psychopathic human. At best they might be able to estimate casualties. LLM's probably can't even reach the logic conclusion of the fictional WOPR Joshua from the movie Wargames [1].

Make LLM's win every game of tic-tac-toe and see if it reaches the same conclusion of WOPR. [1]

...

Edit: (Answering my own question) From Gemini:

Yes, many LLMs (GPT-4, Claude 3, Llama 3) have been tested on Tic-Tac-Toe, and they generally perform poorly, often playing at or below the level of random chance. While they can understand the rules, they struggle with spatial reasoning, often trying to place a piece in an occupied spot, forgetting to block opponents, or failing to win.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s93KC4AGKnY [video][6m][tic-tac-toe]

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game s... by sheiyei on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @03:47PM (#47157622)

Which makes them so great for making difficult (often bad) decisions – it wasn't me, it was the "objective" and "neutral" "superintelligence" which I totally didn't give a suggestive prompt.

[ Parent | on HN ]