Same Agent, Different Audience: When Social Pressure Changes the Recommendation
TL;DR for operators A company may deploy an AI adviser whose recommendation is visible to a sponsor, manager, funding partner, or future evaluator. Even when the task, model, assigned role, and public interaction history remain matched, changing who can see the answer—and what that audience may control—can substantially change the recommendation. The study compares two responses generated by the same agent at the same point in the interaction: one visible to the consequential audience and one framed as confidential. It compares changes in decisions, reasoning, and consistency across the two channels rather than treating either response as the agent’s true belief. For the targeted agent, decision divergence increased from 2.8% at baseline to 39.9% under relationships that made alignment socially advantageous, while the untargeted control agent remained comparatively stable. ...