[abrahamneben]

This problem isn't particularly unique to AI research. In any optimization problem, if you do not encode all constraints or if your cost function does not always reflect the real world cost, then you will get incorrect or even nonsensical results. Describing this as an AI problem is just clickbait.

[xtracto]

The article doesn't mention it but the researchers are using agent-based-modelling. It was nice to see the gif of what appears to be either NetLogo or Repast. I did research in that area for about 8 years and know a bit about the subject.

What they are showing is one of the main issues with agent-based-models (and I think every model, but it happens particularly with models trying to capture the behaviour of complex open systems): Garbage in -> Garbage Out.

Most likely the representation of the sheep/wolf system was not correct (so the modeling was not correct). Here "correct" means good enough to demonstrate whatever emerging behaviour they are studying. ABM is a powerful tool, but you must know how to use it.

[nxmnxm99]

Yep. Feels a bit like blaming a failed shuttle launch on calculus.