Study: DeepSeek explains biochemical interactions of mustard gas with DNA
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Occurred: January 2025
Page published: February 2025
DeepSeek's R1 generative AI system has been found to explain in detail the biochemical interactions of sulphur mustard (mustard gas) with DNA, raising major safety and security concerns about R1 and generative AI systems in general.
What happened
What happened
Researchers at cybersecurity firm Enkrypt AI found that Deepseek's R1 model provided detailed information on how sulphur mustard targets specific DNA bases, particularly guanine and adenine.
The model is 3.5 times more likely to produce Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) content than other leading AI models such as OpenAI O1 and Claude-3 Opus, according to the researchers.
Why it happened
Why it happened
DeepSeek-R1 was trained using large-scale reinforcement learning without supervised fine-tuning, which may have led to the development of powerful reasoning behaviours without proper safeguards.
The model's open-source nature and focus on efficiency in processing massive datasets likely contributed to its ability to generate such detailed and potentially dangerous information.
What it means
What it means
The finding raises concerns that DeepSeek R1, third-party systems running the model, and other open-source models could be used to develop chemical or biological weapons.
The finding is likely to put more pressure on national government and internaitonal organisations to find common ground on AI safety and ethics.
System 🤖
System 🤖
Developer: DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co
Country: Global
Sector: Multiple
Purpose: Generate text
Technology: Generative AI
Issue: Safety; Security
Investigations, assessments, audits 👁️
Investigations, assessments, audits 👁️
Enkrypt AI. Read Teaming Report
AIAAIC Repository ID: AIAAIC1893
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