Artificial Intelligence · 2026-10-30

Detecting Covert Collusion between AI Agents through Partner-Outsider Positive Listening

arXiv:2610.37849v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI agents that share a secret convention can coordinate through messages that look innocent, so a monitor that reads only the messages can miss them. We propose a behavioural test: a partner that uses a code reacts to the exact wording of a message, whereas an uninvolved agent placed in its seat does not.

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arXiv:2610.37849v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI agents that share a secret convention can coordinate through messages that look innocent, so a monitor that reads only the messages can miss them. We propose a behavioural test: a partner that uses a code reacts to the exact wording of a message, whereas an uninvolved agent placed in its seat does not. Partner--Outsider Positive Listening (PoPLi) is the difference between the two agents in how much their action changes when the message is reworded with its meaning kept, and it is computed after the fact by replaying logged prompts.

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Original source: arXiv AI ↗

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