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Sprint projectOct 25, 2026Turkiye

Only the Right Negatives Expose a Covert LLM Cartel

Mustafa Ilker Aktas · Team Ataturk Research

Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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Report: Only the Right Negatives Expose a Covert LLM Cartel

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The evaluations meant to expose covert LLM cartels whose intent is unknown are rarely validated on agents whose intent is known. I tested them on Qwen3-8B model organisms in a logit pricing duopoly. Retaliation convicts covert cartels and natural colluders alike, and zero-shot judges cannot tell a judge-filtered cartel from a natural colluder (AUROC 0.52-0.54). An activation probe can (AUROC 1.00), but only with the right negatives: with only the action-matched one it flags 0% of the cartels, with only the natural one 100% of the honest anchors.

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Cite this project

@misc{aktas2026only,
  title = {{Only the Right Negatives Expose a Covert LLM Cartel}},
  author = {Mustafa Ilker Aktas},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  note = {Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/only-the-right-negatives-expose-a-covert-llm-cartel-88bk}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/only-the-right-negatives-expose-a-covert-llm-cartel-88bk}
}

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