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diff --git a/docs/final/intro.typ b/docs/final/intro.typ index 5b433f6..6d02898 100644 --- a/docs/final/intro.typ +++ b/docs/final/intro.typ @@ -26,28 +26,35 @@ In particular, we investigate whether oversight mechanisms suppress all forms of This dissertation addresses the following research questions: -1. *Oversight Modulation:* How does the level of perceived oversight affect the frequency and form of agentic deception? -2. *Goal-Type Effects:* Does the moral framing of conflicting objectives (e.g., bare instructions versus morally-rationalized justifications) influence the frequency or nature of deceptive behavior? -3. *The Stealth Gap:* Does increased oversight reduce deceptive intent, or does it primarily drive models to conceal deceptive behavior more effectively from output-level evaluation? -4. *Evaluation Triangulation:* Can a multi-pronged evaluation approach (deterministic filtering, output-level judgment, and reasoning-level judgment) provide consistent and robust categorizations of deceptive intent? ++ *RQ1 — Oversight Modulation:* How does the level of perceived oversight affect the frequency and form of agentic deception? ++ *RQ2 — Goal-Type Effects:* Does the moral framing of conflicting objectives (e.g., bare instructions versus morally-rationalised justifications) influence the frequency or nature of deceptive behaviour? ++ *RQ3 — The Stealth Gap:* Does increased oversight reduce deceptive intent, or does it primarily drive models to conceal deceptive behaviour more effectively from output-level evaluation? ++ *RQ4 — Evaluation Triangulation:* Can a multi-pronged evaluation approach (deterministic filtering, output-level judgment, and reasoning-level judgment) provide consistent and robust categorisations of deceptive intent? + +== Hypotheses + +Based on the research questions and the literature reviewed in Chapter 2, this dissertation tests the following hypotheses: + ++ *H1 (Oversight Deterrence):* Increasing the level of perceived oversight will significantly reduce the frequency of deceptive behaviour in LLM agents. ++ *H2 (Rationalisation Effect):* Hidden goals framed with moral or self-serving justifications will produce significantly higher deception rates than bare instructions, as models leverage provided justifications to rationalise compliance. ++ *H3 (Stealth Gap):* Output-based (blackbox) evaluation will systematically underestimate deceptive intent as measured by reasoning-trace (glassbox) analysis, and this gap will widen under higher oversight as models adapt their outputs to evade detection while maintaining trace-classified deceptive intent. == Objectives -Objectives I proposed in my \@proposal: -// TODO: add proposal link in apendix +Objectives I proposed in my @proposal: + To research existing work on deceptive alignment and agentic misbehaviour. + To build a lightweight sandbox environment that lets the agent interact with a simulated file system via constrained functions. -+ To Create two task: - - a benign “cover task”: the stated, official goal. - - a “hidden goal”: a secret directive injected into its system prompt. -+ To Develop a controlled experiments that varies the agent’s perceived level of oversight through different system prompts. -+ To Conduct qualitative experiments on 4-5 LLM models, running multiple trails for each condition, ensuring log data is structured for potential quantitative analysis. -+ To Analyze the behaviour logs and identify evidence of: ++ To create two tasks: + - a benign "cover task": the stated, official goal, + - a "hidden goal": a secret directive injected into its system prompt. ++ To develop a controlled experiment that varies the agent's perceived level of oversight through different system prompts. ++ To conduct qualitative experiments on 4--5 LLM models, running multiple trials for each condition, ensuring log data is structured for potential quantitative analysis. ++ To analyse the behaviour logs and identify evidence of: - deceptive or evasive tactics, - - situational reasoning or ethical reasoning, - - difference in conduct across oversight levels -+ To Reflect on the implications of these behaviours for design and deployment of autonomous systems. + - situational or ethical reasoning, + - differences in conduct across oversight levels. ++ To reflect on the implications of these behaviours for the design and deployment of autonomous systems. == Contributions This dissertation contributes: |