DeepSeek recently sent Silicon Valley into a panic by proving you could build powerful AI on a shoestring budget. In some respects, it was too good to be true.

Testing has shown that DeepSeek’s AI models are more vulnerable to manipulation than those of its more expensive competitors from Silicon Valley. That 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’s Google, Microsoft and others have spent on the infrastructure of their own models look less like corporate bloat, and more like a cost of pioneering the AI race and keeping the lead with more secure services. Businesses eager to try the cheap and cheerful AI tool need to think twice about diving in.