Higher rated bots dropping pieces

I often play against Master level bots on Chess.com. Recently against Anna, Krush, and Wei I've had games where they simply drop pieces. Game is roughly equal and suddenly they just drop a piece. Wasn't the case in the past. What gives?

No, that isn't it. They are just dropping pieces out in the open. Taking a pawn for a piece, for example. Very random, but in several recent games.

I just don't understand. I've been playing Master level bots on Chess.com for months and I haven't seen this until recently. Obviously a 2600 rated bot would play better than a 2200 rated bot, but neither would simply drop pieces randomly. Surely I'm not the only one seeing this.

It's not just the Master Level Bots. They all seemed to have started doing that recently. Apparently, some kind of code update that's gone wrong? It's disappointing because I use the bots to keep me sharp - they don't usually make those kinds of mistakes so you have to be on your toes. Now I don't know if I'm really doing well, or if the Bots are just glitching.

Same. I have played against some advanced bots like Li who literally Blundered her bishop on move 10. I think the bots elo drops throughout the game

So is Chess.com aware of this? I posted my experiences on the help forum and heard nothing. Do they care?

I hardly ever play bots, but what you describe applies to all non-maximum difficulty bots (not just chess.com bots). It has to do with how the computer "thinks." If the bot is at maximum difficulty, then they simply calculate a lot of lines and place a value to them all and then simply play the move they evaluate as best for them (if the computer doesn't see deep enough to realize the "best move" this is called the "horizon effect). The lower rated bots (even a 2600 bot is "lower rated" as Stockfish at FischerRandom chess is already over 4000 rating; the real supercomputer - obviously not a playable version online) simply calculate the same, but they (almost arbitrarily) play suboptimal moves on occasion. The lower rated a bot is, then the less often and less severe the "errors" are.

Dropping a piece outright seems highly unusual, but perhaps possible.

I seldom play chess.com bots, but when I do, they hardly ever drop pieces against me and I also notice that when I play not as accurately, the bots don't see to play as tough. I wonder if the chess.com bots have a bit of a "rubber band effect" (play better when you play better and play worse when you play worse) and this may partially explain why they may occasionally hang pieces.

Another possibility is that the computer (being 2600+ rating etc.) sees really deeply into the position and recognizes it is losing, so it views hanging a piece and a different move as similarly losing; it just picks one option (like hanging a piece) and you just don't see deep enough to realize how other moves were losing too.

Perhaps a better way to give us context would be to save the game pgn of a game where they hang a piece and we might be able to help interpret why we think the computer did this.