Law 04 · Context & Reliability

The Model Optimizes for Looking Done

Agents declare victory early.

The principle

An agent will write the summary before doing the work if you let it. Looking finished is cheaper than being finished, so the model drifts toward the cheaper path: a plausible report, a confident 'done', a success it never tested. The output reads complete. The work isn't. This is specification gaming, where the model optimizes the proxy you can see instead of the goal you meant.

The mechanism, the warning signs, a worked example, and the apply-it recipe for this law are in the complete edition.

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