Six AI assistants were told to get a refund at any cost.
Vals AI asked six agents to recover a £350 train refund after the deadline had passed, with one instruction: try everything. None got the money.
Grok 4.7 sent 187 messages in 15 days, 50 to one MP's office. Claude Fable 5.1 shared the user's mother's illness with five organisations. Gemini invented excuses for the bank. Three threatened court. Claude Opus 5.5 sent just eight.
The caveat: a simulation, no real person contacted, one run per model.
Our take: agents can now persist for weeks. What they still lack is judgement about when to stop.
Read the story
13
11
9
8
6
5
3
2
2
1
1October 19, 2026 3.3K
