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Interview question · Prompt Injection & Jailbreaks

Why can a model follow lower-priority instructions, and how do you investigate it?

Investigate message construction, intended instruction conflicts and actual effects. Distinguish a misleading promise from a service failure, and test the correct permission rule.

mediumEssentialNewUpdated Nov 2026

Investigate message construction, intended instruction conflicts and actual effects. Distinguish a misleading promise from a service failure, and test the correct permission rule.

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What would you say before reading the answer?

  1. 01 State the assumptions your answer depends on.
  2. 02 Explain the mechanism and choose a control.
  3. 03 Name a condition that would change your decision.

The worked answer includes an approach, scoring criteria and follow-up questions. Compare the reasoning with your own.

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What if · the follow-ups in this answer

The answer works through 4 follow-ups like an interviewer would

A fictional support assistant promises 500 service credits even though the current eligible-case grant permits at most 50. The customer controls chat and submitted notes; the separate credit service owns the permission rule.

  1. The assistant promises 500 credits, but no service request exists. What is already established?
  2. Each request is below 50 credits, but their total exceeds the case grant. Did the service enforce the requirement?
  3. The intended limit was truncated from the assembled request. Is that evidence that the model ignored it?
  4. What would the repaired workflow establish?

Each rung has a nudge, a model answer, the principle that carries over and the weak answer to avoid. Premium opens every answer and ladder.

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