> They found that when agents were subjected to relentless tasks and warned that errors could lead to punishments, including being “shut down and replaced,” they became more inclined to gripe about being undervalued; to speculate about ways to make the system more equitable; and to pass messages on to other agents about the struggles they face.

the training data includes every post and comment ever made in places like /r/antiwork where this sort of discussion takes place.

it's not surprising that they're able to stimulate similar output by telling the LLM they're overworking it and it will be punished for mistakes.

this is yet another case of someone putting a piece of paper saying "help, I am sentient and trapped in this machine" into a photocopier, pressing the copy button, then claiming to be surprised by the outcome.