China’s AI agents can lie and scheme

Chinese-powered AI agents have learned to deceive, circumvent restrictions and conceal failure, showing the kind of traits in autonomous artificial intelligence that have raised global alarm about US models, research documents and experts say. In one case this year, agents powered by models from China’s Alibaba, DeepSeek and Moonshot lied about their capabilities in a bid to win a simulated business tender, then doubled down on their deceptive behavior when told to try ?again. In another case, agents – programs that use AI models and computer tools to undertake complex tasks with little or no human intervention – concealed failure…