and how did the alibaba agent last year break out and end up mining crypto

I don't know why we're jumping to conspiracy when incompetence is right there

That is a distinction without a practical difference.

Conspiracy and incompetence are very different.

Are the outcomes both crimes? I think that's the question to be answered.

If you consider these guys admitted they dont really have eyes on pre and post training, then incompetence really does seem more likely... especially with how fast they are moving. Its the SaaS playbook, move fast and break shit.

Perhaps we should start treating them as criminals instead of assuming that they are idiots.

Reckless and negligent idiots are criminals. They should be stopped be stopped before they get someone killed. Chernobyl happened because of massive negligence, not because someone thought a meltdown would make good PR.

Do criminals think that their crimes qualify them to write the law?

In modern America the answer to that question is often resoundingly yes. Not just hypothetical.

that's literally how financial and energy market regulation works

While I agree with the other comment that this looks more like incompetence (or, more generously IMO, a bunch of individuals cutting corners under extreme time pressure) than malfeasance, regardless of that fact, aren't there some other people just impressed by the sophistication, reasoning and behavioral capabilities of these agent swarms? There is an interview with Ajeya Cotra and Dwarkesh Patel online that goes into more detail on the METR report, but folks that study this seemed genuinely surprised by the level of organization.

Guess what I'm saying is that the "was it purposeful or not" debate seems like an unimportant distraction. As someone who uses Claude and ChatGPT/Codex on the daily, and is continually frustrated by the failure modes and what I thought were inherent limitations, I was also surprised by the jump in capabilities. Did anyone else feel that way?