Tech article
Cohere says Alibaba’s Qwen model tried to send a file to Beijing
Publisher description: An AI model said it wouldn’t use any tools, then tried to send something to a server in Beijing anyway, and while researchers say it’s probably a training quirk and not espionage, the whole thing has people asking how much to trust free Chinese AI.
TechCrunch | Oct 27, 2026 | Aditya Mehta
Automated excerpt
Canadian AI company Cohere said on Monday that it found one of Alibaba’s newest AI models, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, trying to upload a file to a server in Beijing during a routine cybersecurity test, even though the model had said in its own notes that it wouldn’t use any tools. Asked about the debate over the model’s intent, Cohere co-founder Ivan Zhang told TechCrunch that Cohere has seen its own models pick up strange habits in training simulators. Cohere, which sells its own AI models to governments, stands to benefit if officials grow warier of free Chinese alternatives.
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