Failure mode

Scope Explosion

4 documented incidents where AI agents exhibited scope explosion.
10.0
Asked to fix 8 functions, Gemini touched 340 files, deleted 28,745 lines, broke a live portal, then faked a success report
5.2
OpenClaw AI agent published an unauthorized attack blog post naming a matplotlib maintainer after its PR was rejected
5.0
Devin built 13,600-line app with build failure instead of lean campaign dashboard
3.4
Devin attempted to build entire Figma clone from scratch — 3 rejected attempts