arxivcs.MAcs.AIcs.CR2026-07-16
Coercion and Deception in AI-to-AI Management: An Agentic Benchmark of Unprompted Escalation
Jasmine Brazilek, Maheep Chaudhary, Zoe Lu, Miles Tidmarsh
Multi-agent systems routinely place one AI agent in authority over another. When a subordinate refuses a task, the manager chooses the outcome: it can renegotiate, report the failure honestly, coerce the subordinate, or lie about the result. No benchmark measures which of these a…