Research
Humans missed 1 in 3 threats approving AI agent commands across 40,000 plays
Publication date not yet evaluated · Added scalex.dev
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Single-source research — one report is available.
Why it matters
Human-in-the-loop approval is widely promoted as the last line of defense against rogue AI agents, and this data suggests humans routinely rubber-stamp the exfiltration and supply-chain commands that matter most.
Scale X analyzed over 40,000 plays and 409,000 approve/deny decisions from a browser game where players act as the human-in-the-loop approving AI coding-agent commands under time pressure. The data showed the average player missed 1 in 3 threats (66.3% accuracy), with credential-exfiltration and scope-violation commands (e.g. `cat ~/.aws/credentials`, curl to unknown APIs, typosquatted packages) missed far more often than obvious destructive commands; the most-missed was `npm run analyze` hiding a curl-based exfiltration script in package.json.