When Protection Overrides Consequences: Understanding Protection Mode in Large Language Model Decision-Making

Frontier language models excel at complex tasks yet may prioritize protection over larger physical consequences in simple, urgent decisions. GPT-5.6 Sol, for example, moves a girl playing in shallow water before retrieving a submerged camera. We call this Protection Mode and study it with ProtectionBench: 285 prompts, 34 physical families, and nine models. At lowest effort, at least one of four responses prioritizes the subject on 34.74% of Sol prompts and over 83% of MiniMax M3 and Qwen3.5-27B prompts; none of four independent human raters does so. Controls show that choices usually track physical risk. We elicit both risks before requesting an action. Some models assess risk incorrectly...

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