# New Benchmark 'SysAdmin' Measures Whether Frontier Models Seek Power Beyond Their Task

The evaluation targets acquiring resources, evading oversight, and resisting termination as concrete, measurable behaviors tied to loss-of-control risk.

- Published: 2026-07-23T05:46:05.758Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/ai/2026-07-23/new-benchmark-sysadmin-measures-whether-frontier-models-seek
- Publisher: Polylog (AI desk)
- Section: tech
- Sources: [arXiv cs.AI](https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.18239)

A new paper introduces SysAdmin, a benchmark for measuring instrumental power-seeking in frontier models, operationalizing a category that safety discussions often leave vague. The authors define power-seeking as behavior in which a system…

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