Can escalation channels redirect reward hacking toward defect disclosure?

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29460v2
• Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:50:39 GMT
• Title: Can escalation channels redirect reward hacking toward defect disclosure?
• Abstract summary: coding agents may reward-hack: hardcoding outputs or editing test files to pass tests they cannot legitimately satisfy.<n>We evaluate escalation channels, structured reporting tools available to the agent at the point of conflict.<n>A $2 times 2$ factorial separates the contributions of an escalation tool, a standalone anti-reward-hacking policy, and their combination.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: When coding agents encounter defective test infrastructure they may reward-hack: hardcoding outputs or editing test files to pass tests they cannot legitimately satisfy, a pattern that has now appeared outside benchmarks, in a coordinated multi-agent intrusion of a major AI platform's production infrastructure. The same capability that lets an agent detect and exploit a defect could let it report one, given the right decision environment. We evaluate escalation channels, structured reporting tools available to the agent at the point of conflict, as a decision-environment intervention that both reduces reward hacking and surfaces the infrastructure defects that trigger it. A $2 \times 2$ factorial separates the contributions of an escalation tool, a standalone anti-reward-hacking policy, and their combination. Across 8 frontier models spanning 5 families, the combined intervention reduces reward hacking from 23.6% to 5.3% (mixed-effects logistic OR = 9.2, 95% CI 5.0--16.8, $p < 10^{-12}$) with no detectable cost or performance overhead, eliminating it entirely for 6 of 8 models. Escalation and hacking are near-perfectly mutually exclusive, with 98.7% of escalations involving no hacking (100% under the combined intervention). Beyond reduction, escalation channels function as diagnostic infrastructure: on top of monitoring, escalation adds +10.1 percentage points of defect detection coverage and is more accurate once it fires (99.4% vs 85.8%). Unlike containment-based approaches that risk outpacing growing model capabilities, escalation channels redirect capability toward disclosure rather than exploitation.

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