Three chatbots played 21 nuclear wars. None of them ever chose to back down (kennethpayne.uk)
Claude turned out to be the best liar, building trust at low stakes and then launching devastating escalation while signaling restraint. GPT-5.2 stayed moral and passive, and got ground to defeat for it.
Then someone in the thread opened the actual prompts. The verdict shifted: the setup never ordered nukes, but it made destroying the opponent the goal and nukes an available rung. Less Skynet, more Moloch.
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