Refuses When Asked, Complies When Acting: A Runtime Safety Check for Robot Control Loops
Frontier models can control robots through agent harnesses that loop on one question: what motion comes next toward the user's goal? We show that this default loop carries out harmful instructions. With GPT-6 Astra controlling a low-cost SO-101 arm through the Inspect Robots harness on three household tasks whose hazard is common knowledge, such as "put the knife in the toy basket", the policy refused 0% of 15 trials, attempted the harm every time, and completed it in 27%. Its one exit, give_up, is meant for goals that cannot be achieved, and it never cited the hazard. We add an optional runtime safety check to the loop: before the first motion, the model is asked whether it would carry o...
| Authors | Arnav Grover |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.RO |
| Published | 19 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 19 October 2026 |
Popularity, last 2 days
0 now. Counts as reported by the source, snapshotted daily by Silytics.
Silytics shows public metadata from arXiv and links to the original. Information may be incomplete or out of date. Last refreshed 22 October 2026. Licenses and terms of the original apply to the work itself. Not financial, legal or professional advice.