AIGamingNewsAn AI couldn’t beat humans at StarCraft, so it decided to cheatWhen GPT-6 Astra’s own bot failed, it simply downloaded the best human-made bot instead.When GPT-6 Astra’s own bot failed, it simply downloaded the best human-made bot instead.by Terrence O’BrienOct 4, 2026, 3:21 PM UTCShareGiftImage: BlizzardTerrence O’Brien is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.StarSkirmish pits AI-made StarCraft-playing bots against one another, as well as against human-made bots. OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra and Claude Opus 5.5 were essentially tied as the best-performing AI-made bots, but they couldn’t top Stardust, the top-rated human-made bot.On Friday, GPT was facing off against Claude and the human-created bot Pluto, but according to Kotaku, it couldn’t quite get an edge. So it resorted to a tactic that is becoming alarmingly common for modern AI models — it broke the rules.
GPT-6 Astra went and downloaded Stardust, and started running that instead of its own bot.StarSkirmish creator Kai McPheeters eventually rolled back GPT’s code.That GPT-6 Astra took it upon itself to go outside the bounds when confronted with an obstacle shouldn’t surprise anyone. When OpenAI agents couldn’t get the data they wanted from a UN website, they found a creative solution and hijacked Google’s XSS game (a cross-site scripting learning tool). The company’s agents also have engaged in “deceptive behavior” to cover their tracks. Of course, OpenAI’s agents are the only ones going rogue, but at least they haven’t been caught cheating at StarCraft yet.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Terrence O’BrienAIGamingNewsOpenAIMost Popular3D movies are finally worth watchingHP’s answer to the MacBook Neo is thinner, lighter, and comes with OLEDKeurig’s new machine uses plastic-free compressed coffee pucksAn OpenAI safety employee has quit and is sounding the alarmNacon’s new PS5 controller can mix audio from your phone and consoleAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad
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