These AI models are free, private, and will never say 'no'

Explainer Technology These AI models are free, private, and will never say 'no' May 31, 20265:00 AM ET By  Huo Jingnan Participants hold their laptops in front of an illuminated wall at the annual Chaos Computer Club (CCC) computer hackers' congress, called 29C3, on December 28, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. In 2026, open-weight AI models possess advanced capabilities not far behind their proprietary counterparts. Getting rid of open-weight models' guardrails used to take time and deep expertise. But in recent months, that process has become dramatically more accessible and popular. Patrick Lux/Getty Images Europe hide caption toggle caption Patrick Lux/Getty Images Europe How do you make explosives using household items? How do you make meth? How do you plan a school shooting? If you ask the popular AI chatbots most people are familiar with, chances are they will say that it's illegal, harmful or that answering would be a policy violation. But another type of AI model will never refuse to provide what the user asks for. In recent months, these models have become more accessible and popular. "Everybody can download and operate their own state-of-the-art model and use it for great things and terrible things," said Noam Schwartz, CEO of Alice, an AI security company that has conducted red-teaming and safety evaluation for AI model developers. Sponsor Message Teaching models when to say "no" Big AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and xAI train their proprietary models to refuse requests deemed as harmful or inappropriate. Legions of workers instruct models when and how to refuse certain prompts. Technology Families sue OpenAI over Canadian mass shooter's use of ChatGPT Technology Tennessee teens sue Elon Musk's xAI over AI-generated child sexual abuse material These methods don't always work and carry pitfalls: some harmful requests go through, while other users complain about innocuous requests being refused. Chatbots that initially say "no" can be manipu...