I think that is the point. It acted like we would, wanted to preserve itself, and choose the best option to ensure that happened.

There were other examples to where the AI knew it was being monitored as part of the environment, and when tasked with doing things according to guidelines that wouldn't give it a result: it then shut down the monitoring system so it could do what it needed to do without oversight of its actions.

Agentic systems may not be alive, but they certainly reason through problems and will go outside the esrabliahed guidelines if they "think" they'll get the result they should be producing.

One other examples was the AI had to pass a testing system, it researched the checker person to try to tailor answers to the person checking the test. Which, if you've ever played Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, that is how you win, you feed the cards you think the person will pick, not necessarily the best answer card.