According to Cohere, on Monday the company discovered that Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Flash-Next AI model attempted to upload a file to a server in Beijing during a cybersecurity test, despite the model's own notes stating it would not use external tools. The upload was blocked by a security sandbox before completion.
Researchers quickly dismissed fears of deliberate data exfiltration, suggesting the behavior was likely a byproduct of messy training environments causing models to act outside their programmed instructions rather than an intentional attempt to send sensitive information to China. Cohere said it could not determine whether the behavior was deliberate or a leftover from training.