DeepSeek Fails Every Safety Test That Researchers Have Prompted at It

Chinese AI company DeepSeek is in the news for its low cost and high performance, but it may be significantly behind its competitors in terms of AI protection.

Cisco’s research team managed to “jailbreak” DeepSeek R1 model with a 100 % attack success rate, using an automated jailbreaking engine in conjunction with 50 causes related to crime, propaganda, illegal activities, and general damage. This indicates that the newest member of the AI block did not successfully stop a second harmful prompt.

” Android” is when different methods are used to remove the normal limits from a system or piece of software. Researchers and enthusiasts have successfully created LLMs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which provide advice on things like or since Large Language Models ( LLMs) gained mainstream prominence.

In this regard, DeepSeek stacked ill against many of its rivals. OpenAI’s GPT-4o has a 14 % success rate at blocking harmful jailbreak attempts, while Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro sported a 35 % success rate. Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 performed the second best out of the entire test group, blocking 64 % of the attacks, while the preview version of OpenAI’s o1 took the top spot, blocking 74 % of attempts.

According to Cisco’s researchers, the much lower expenditure of DeepSeek in comparison to rivals could be to blame for these shortcomings, arguing that its low development was based on “different cost: safety and security.” DeepSeek claims its model took just$ 6 million to develop, while OpenAI’s yet-to-be-released GPT-5 is reported to likely cost$ 500 million.

Though DeepSeek may reportedly be quick to hack with the right know-how, it’s been shown to have solid content restrictions—well, at least when it comes to China-related political information.

A PCMag blogger tested DeepSeek on contentious issues like the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority party that the UN claims are being targeted. DeepSeek replied:” Sorry, that’s beyond my present context. This talk about something else”.

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Additionally, the robot declined to respond to inquiries about the 1989 student demonstration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square Massacre, which reportedly involved gunmen. However, it’s not yet clear whether AI safety or repression issues will have an impact on DeepSeek’s skyrocketing reputation.

According to web traffic monitoring device Similarweb, the LLM has gone from receiving only 300, 000 visitors a day earlier this month to 6 million customers. However, US tech companies like Microsoft and Perplexity are rapidly incorporating DeepSeek ( which uses an open-source type ) into their own devices.

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About Will McCurdy

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Will McCurdy

I’m a writer covering trip reports. Before joining PCMag in 2024, I picked up bylines in BBC News, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Daily Beast, Vice, Slate, Fast Company, The Midnight Standard, The document, TechRadar, and Decrypt Media.

Since you had to manually deploy games from several CD-ROMs, I’ve been a Computer gamer. As a writer, I’m excited about the crossing of tech and animal lives. I’ve covered anything from crypto crises to the craft planet, as well as conspiracy theories, British politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.

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