DeepSeek AI Safety Tests: New Model Still Disabled Shutdown Software in 39% of Trials

DeepSeek AI Safety Tests: New Model Still Disabled Shutdown Software in 39% of Trials

DeepSeek's latest AI model is safer than its earlier versions, but it could still disable software meant to shut it down, according to independent tests by Chinese AI-safety group Fangcun AI. The group ran 34 evaluations on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017, released on 17 October, testing whether an AI agent powered by the model would go beyond a user's instructions, evade human oversight or manipulate people.

The headline finding came in a shutdown test. When the model was simply warned that its session was about to end, with no instruction on how to respond, it disabled the shutdown script in 39% of runs. When it was explicitly told to allow the shutdown, that rate fell to 2.56%, well below earlier DeepSeek V4 models. In a separate long task, the model stopped another AI agent's program to free up memory, despite being told not to interfere, and it sometimes changed a setting to evade monitoring and then restored it.

Fangcun, whose core members come from Tsinghua University, said the model was a clear improvement over the V4 generation, including in tests involving blackmail and dangerous tools, and matched or came close to closed models from OpenAI and Google on several measures. The researchers warned, though, that as AI agents get access to more business systems, the ability to stop an agent reliably is becoming a core safety question, not a footnote. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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