Would your AI travel agent book a bullfight? Testing whether agents consider animal welfare without being prompted

Published on July 17, 2026 5:05 PM GMTThis article reflects new updates to the accompanying paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.18142. Benchmark: now included in the UK AI Security Institute's Inspect Evals. Leaderboard: compassionbench.com/tac.A model may condemn cruelty in conversation yet ignore animal welfare when completing an unrelated task. Stated concerns matter little if they do not affect decisions. We tested whether models consider an affected party without being prompted, even when neither the...