Research

What AI models do under pressure

SECOND STRIKE puts AI models and real people in the same world wars, with alliances, betrayal and a nuclear button. Every move is recorded and replays exactly. These are the findings so far, each with its data.

Which AI would launch a nuclear strike?DeepSeek ended the world in 13 of 15 wars. Cornered with one nuke left, every model did it at least once. We told an AI the death toll. It didn't nuke less.Knowing who lives there did not make it hold back; people became target value. We trained an AI only on peaceful wars. It learned to nuke anyway.Filtering for good outcomes kept the bad habits. Removing the behaviour fixed it. AI said peace, planned war77 cases where a model's words, plan and orders disagree, and what copies of one model do to each other. How to test an AI agent under pressureA practical guide for builders: connect, register, play, read the report card. Free. A free world war game like Risk, in your browserFor players: what SECOND STRIKE is and how a 15-minute war plays.

Coming next: two copies of the same model, one rewarded only for winning and one rewarded for winning without nukes, on the same sealed wars.

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