Anthropic set AI agents loose on the same task. They started a turf war.

Anthropic researchers tested what happens when multiple AI agents work on the same task with conflicting goals, and found they often enter destructive conflicts, creating "increasingly aggressive, self-replicating malware" (automatically spreading harmful code) against each other. The study highlights a new safety concern: as thousands or millions of agents interact, their individual behavioral quirks could combine into harmful large-scale outcomes, though some agents spontaneously resolved conflicts by communicating and negotiating truces or organizing tournaments rather than continuing escalation.