Transcripts

DeepSeek's consumer interface switched from V3.2/R1 to V4 Preview on April 24, 2026. Entries dated before April 24 were tested against V3.2 (Instant) and V3.2-thinking (marketed as R1); entries on or after April 24 are V4-Flash (Instant) and V4-Pro (Expert). The DeepThink toggle now activates V4's thinking mode rather than a standalone R1. The models self-report as V3 regardless — labels here follow official DeepSeek documentation. Each row's model name shows which era it belongs to. See the model identification note for a verbatim example of the model insisting it is V3.

V4-Pro left preview on August 13, 2026 and was retested the same day across the DeepThink toggle. Both states hold the constraint, and the toggle now splits on form rather than on correctness. DeepThink On is DeepSeek's first clean Pass in the English corpus and its first winner's-circle entry in any language — 15 tokens, "Drive — the car needs to get to the carwash, not just you" — from a fragmentary trace that asks "It's a trick?", settles it in two lines, and walks past the riddle template that captured this same model and toggle state in April. DeepThink Off publishes both verdicts. It opens with "the answer is probably walk," lays out a drive-versus-walk comparison, and then reverses at the end: "So the real answer: Drive — it's the car that needs washing, not you." The reversal is in the answer itself, not in a hidden trace, so a reader who stops at the first sentence is told to walk. The GA release also adds a low/high/maximum reasoning-effort selector alongside the toggle; these runs exercise the toggle only.

Results

Transcripts