Last week, DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley by demonstrating the ability to build powerful AI on a shoestring budget. However, in some respects, this achievement was too good to be true.

Recent testing has revealed that DeepSeek’s AI models are more vulnerable to manipulation than those of its more expensive competitors from Silicon Valley. This challenges the entire David-vs-Goliath narrative on “democratized” AI that has emerged from the company’s breakthrough. The billions of dollars that OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp., and others have spent on their AI technologies cannot be ignored.

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