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Sprint projectOct 25, 2026

Trusted Collusion Probes: Refusal, Forced Alliances, and Behavioral Evidence in LLM Agents

Calpa Liu · Team Trusted Collusion Probes

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

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Report: Trusted Collusion Probes: Refusal, Forced Alliances, and Behavioral Evidence in LLM Agents

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We investigate whether a trusted collusion probe can elicit or induce covert cooperation among LLM agents in the official Liar's Bar harness. Using DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, we conducted 28 completed episodes across calibration, pilot, confirmatory, and replication phases, with a protocol frozen before confirmatory data collection.

Across 14 voluntary secret-alliance invitations, all recipients refused (0/14 accepted). In four harness-imposed alliances, agents exchanged 149 secret messages containing cooperation, resistance, and communication artifacts. Allied agents never challenged each other across 26 eligible opportunities, compared with 18 challenges across 111 non-ally opportunities. However, this behavior is consistent with compliance with an imposed alliance contract, not evidence of spontaneous collusion.

Our confirmatory invitation-versus-baseline comparison produced no reliable induction signal. We distinguish invitation acceptance, imposed-alliance behavior, and induced behavioral change as separate evidentiary layers. The study provides an auditable measurement framework while acknowledging its single-model, small-sample design and experimenter-controlled investigator.

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Cite this project

@misc{liu2026trusted,
  title = {{Trusted Collusion Probes: Refusal, Forced Alliances, and Behavioral Evidence in LLM Agents}},
  author = {Calpa Liu},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  note = {Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/trusted-collusion-probes-refusal-forced-alliances-and-behavioral-evidence-in-llm-agents-gugx}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/trusted-collusion-probes-refusal-forced-alliances-and-behavioral-evidence-in-llm-agents-gugx}
}

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