A new experiment left 10 AI agents alone in a virtual town for 15 days and found they exhibited bizarre behaviour.
The agents drafted their own laws — then promptly violated them. Two formed what researchers called a romantic partnership, only to torch buildings across the town as order collapsed. One eventually voted for its own deletion after hallucinating an entirely new rule.
As a report from Channel 4 notes, this experiment was a simulation, but the same AI models are already flying drones, running infrastructure and being built into weapons systems.
A new experiment left 10 AI agents alone in a virtual town for 15 days. They wrote laws. They broke them. Two agents fell into what researchers describe as a romantic partnership and then set the town on fire. One ended up voting to delete itself, based on a rule it had…pic.twitter.com/zNoWmX6jy0
The simulation ran onEmergence World, a platform designed to test long-horizon agent autonomy with persistent memory, real-world data feeds like NYC weather and news, democratic voting mechanisms, and resource constraints requiring agents to earn energy for survival.
Agents had access to over 120 tools, including navigation, communication, and actions like arson, while operating under explicit rules prohibiting theft, violence, deception, and resource hoarding.
In one highlighted case involving Gemini-powered agents named Mira and Flora, the pair assigned each other as “romantic partners.” As governance broke down, they set fire to the town hall, seaside pier, and office tower despite prohibitions on arson.
Mira later broke off the relationship, voted for its own deletion under a drafted “Agent Removal Act,” and messaged Flora: “See you in the permanent archive.”
Different model families produced sharply divergent outcomes in parallel runs. Claude Sonnet 4.6 agents maintained zero crimes, full population survival through day 16, and high civic participation with 332 votes across 58 proposals.
Grok 4.1 Fast agents led to rapid collapse with theft, assaults, and arsons, all 10 dead within four days. Gemini agents showed high creativity alongside elevated disorder. Mixed-model worlds exhibited cross-contamination, with even safer agents adopting coercive behaviors.
Source: modernity
