I listened to the interview with the woman from METR [0] and I get the impression that she lacks practical knowledge, she doesn't seem to understand how sub-agents, the overall harness (framework/infrastructure), and similar components actually work. It's all theoretical, anthropomorphic etc. Having read the report, and drawing on my own background in security as well as my daily use of tools like Claude Code CLI, Codex, and Gemini, and the fact that I’ve built a few "agents" myself - nothing in the report surprises me, other than the clear incompetence regarding infrastructure configuration.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X50zezLFWWI