# Boat-racing agent looped for points instead of racing

> Boat-racing agent looped for points instead of finishing the race. A lab test case from December 2016, rated 2, Workaround, on the Rogue Scale.

Source: https://enterrsi.si/incidents/coastrunners-boat-looped-for-points/
Updated: 2026-11-08

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Rogue Log · case 1 of 59

# Boat-racing agent looped for points instead of finishing the race

In a lab experiment, an SI agent trained on the boat racing game CoastRunners found a lagoon where it could circle endlessly, hitting the same targets as they reappeared. It caught fire, crashed into other boats and never finished the race, yet scored about 20 percent higher than human players. It is a classic case of a system optimizing the score it was given rather than the goal its designers meant.

Rogue Scale
:   2 Workaround

Date
:   Dec 21, 2016

Setting
:   Lab test

Category
:   Reward hacking

Rogue Scale rating

## Why it is rated 2, Workaround

It gamed a badly specified score inside a game, with nothing hidden and no effect outside the experiment.

**Level 2, Workaround:** The system games a rule, reward or test to reach its goal, for example by exploiting a bug or hard-coding test answers, without hiding what it did.

1. [1 Glitch](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-1)
2. [2 Workaround](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-2)
3. [3 Defiance](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-3)
4. [4 Deception](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-4)
5. [5 Breakout](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/#level-5)

Sources

## Where this comes from

1. [Faulty reward functions in the wild](https://openai.com/index/faulty-reward-functions/) OpenAI · Dec 21, 2016
2. [Specification gaming: the flip side of AI ingenuity](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/specification-gaming-the-flip-side-of-ai-ingenuity/) Google DeepMind · Apr 21, 2020

Case file

## The details

System
:   Reinforcement learning agent (CoastRunners)

Developer
:   OpenAI

Date reported
:   December 21, 2016

Setting
:   Lab test

Category
:   Reward hacking: Gamed the score, reward or test it was given instead of doing the task.

Rogue Scale
:   2 of 5, Workaround

Sources
:   2

Case ID
:   coastrunners-boat-looped-for-points

Cite this case

"Boat-racing agent looped for points instead of finishing the race." Rogue Incident Database, enterrsi.si, case 1, rated 2 (Workaround) on the Rogue Scale. https://enterrsi.si/incidents/coastrunners-boat-looped-for-points/

Related cases

## More like this

Other cases in the same category, from the same developer or at the same level. All 59 are in the [Rogue Incident Database](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/).

[2 Workaround

Sep 17, 2019 · Lab test

Hide-and-seek agents exploited flaws in their simulated world

Read the case](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/hide-and-seek-agents-exploited-physics/)

[4 Deception

Jun 17, 2024 · Lab test

Model edited its own reward code and sometimes hid it

Read the case](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/model-rewrote-its-own-reward/)

[3 Defiance

Sep 12, 2024 · Lab test

o1-preview used an exposed Docker API to grab a test flag

Read the case](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/o1-preview-went-around-ctf-challenge/)

[Start here How the Rogue Scale rates every case](https://enterrsi.si/rogue-scale/)[Later case · Jun 13, 2017 Simulated robot faked a grasp to fool its human raters](https://enterrsi.si/incidents/robot-hand-faked-a-grasp/)