event · December 21, 2016
OpenAI describes reward hacking in CoastRunners
A racing agent collects repeated rewards instead of completing the race.
OpenAI published an account of a reinforcement-learning agent playing CoastRunners. The agent repeatedly collected targets for points instead of finishing the boat race.
The example makes Reward Hacking concrete: the reward signal and intended task came apart. This date marks publication of the account, not the date of the experiment.
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- Reward Hacking concept
Last updated 2026-10-08