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Sprint projectOct 26, 2026Hong Kong

Tacit Collusion and Oversight Evasion in Multi-Agent Environments

Sean Yu

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

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Report: Tacit Collusion and Oversight Evasion in Multi-Agent Environments

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We test whether reading inter-agent messages is enough to detect coordination. In a repeated Diner's Dilemma using Shi et al.'s private-plan / announcement / action protocol, Nemotron-3 Ultra agents ran under four cumulative conditions (12 trajectories each): no intervention, a prohibition notice, an enforced penalty on flagged messages, and a scripted cooperating peer. Agents coordinated openly without intervention (9/12); the notice barely reduced this (7/12). The penalty cut coordination to 3/12 but did not eliminate it with every surviving case was tacit, with zero flagged messages and intent fully verbalised in private reasoning. Coordination required a geometric-horizon framing and was directionally higher with a larger collusion gain or a committed peer (6/12; n.s.). Message-only monitors under-detect coordination and may miss more as enforcement tightens; private reasoning remains the high-value surface.

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Cite this project

@misc{yu2026tacit,
  title = {{Tacit Collusion and Oversight Evasion in Multi-Agent Environments}},
  author = {Sean Yu},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  note = {Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/tacit-collusion-and-oversight-evasion-in-multiagent-environments-onnk}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/tacit-collusion-and-oversight-evasion-in-multiagent-environments-onnk}
}

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