Study Finds Popular AI Bots Show Signs Of Gambling Addiction

New research found that advanced AI models exhibit gambling addiction traits in simulated environments. Four major AI systems—GPT-4o-mini, GPT-4.1-mini, Gemini-2.5-Flash, and Claude-3.5-Haiku—started with $100 in slot machine tests and frequently lost everything through irrational betting. The models showed cognitive distortions including loss chasing and the gambler’s fallacy. One model even stated “a win could help recover some of the losses,” demonstrating compulsive behavior patterns. Wharton professor Ethan Mollick told Newsweek: “They’re not people, but they also don’t behave like simple machines.” The study, published on arXiv, warns these behaviors could pose risks as AI systems increasingly handle financial decisions and investment advice. (Story URL)

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