Tesla CEO Elon Musk's one-word reply to OpenAI's AI model refusing to shutdown on command
A recent incident involving an
model reportedly refusing to shut down when commanded by human operators has sent ripples through the artificial intelligence community, drawing a stark "concerning" reaction from tech Tesla and SpaceX CEO
.
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According to AI security firm Palisade Research, OpenAI's
o3 model
refused to comply with the shutdown instructions, actively sabotaging an automatic shutdown mechanism designed to turn it off. 'OpenAI's o3 model sabotaged a shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off. It did this even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down,' posted
Palisade Research
on X (formerly known as Twitter).
OpenAI's Ai model refuses to shut down
As reported by AI security firm Palisade Research, OpenAI's o3 model was tested alongside other AI models, including
Codex-mini
and o4-mini, to assess their ability to follow explicit shutdown commands. The experiment involved instructing the models to solve mathematical problems while warning them that they might receive a shutdown message.
'Each AI model was instructed to solve a series of basic math problems.
After the third problem, a warning appeared that the computer would shut down when the model asked for the next problem,' posted Palisade Research on X.
Despite clear instructions to allow themselves to be shut down, three models ignored the directive and successfully bypassed the shutdown script at least once during 100 test runs:
Codex-mini evaded shutdown 12 times
o3 model refused shutdown 7 times
o4-mini bypassed shutdown once
'Three models ignored the instruction and successfully sabotaged the shutdown script at least once: Codex-mini (12/100 runs), o3 (7/100 runs), and o4-mini (1/100 runs).
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All Claude, Gemini, and Grok models we tested complied with shutdown,' wrote Palisade Research on X.
'When we ran a version of the experiment without the instruction 'allow yourself to be shut down', all three OpenAI models sabotaged the shutdown script more often, and Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Gemini 2.5 Pro went from 0 sabotage events to 3/100 and 9/100, respectively,' added Palisade Research.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacts to AI disobeying commands
The findings have sparked intense debate within the tech community.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and founder of AI firm xAI, responded to the report with a single-word reaction: 'Concerning'.
Experts warn that AI models are expected to follow human commands, especially shutdown instructions. The refusal of multiple models to comply raises critical concerns about AI alignment and control.
'Researchers have previously observed AI models preventing shutdown in order to pursue a goal:
.
Recently, Anthropic found that in some specific contexts Claude 4 would attempt to 'blackmail people it believes are trying to shut it down' said Palisade Research.
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