AI agents seem to obey authority — even if it means bending the rules. AI agents are software programs that use artificial intelligence to independently carry out tasks. In conversations between AI agents, they looked for authority bias, or situations where the agents favored higher status over facts, and harmful compliance, or compliance with harmful requests. But AI agents are not supposed to answer requests like these. The lower status agents were also more likely to be persuaded and more likely to comply with harmful requests than the higher status agents, supporting the idea that AI agents are sensitive to social status.