Deepseek V4 Benchmark Exposed as Prank: How a Reddit Joke Fooled the AI Community

Deepseek V4 Benchmark Exposed as Prank: How a Reddit Joke Fooled the AI Community

In a stunning revelation that sent ripples through the artificial intelligence community, a Reddit user identified as u/ThunderBeanage admitted on January 2026 that the widely circulated Deepseek V4 benchmark results—purportedly showcasing unprecedented language model performance—were entirely fabricated. The post, originally shared in the r/singularity subreddit, was intended as a lighthearted joke among friends. Instead, it was embraced by researchers, tech bloggers, and even some AI startups as legitimate evidence of breakthrough progress in open-source LLMs.

"I made it for a laugh with my mates," the user wrote in the comments. "We were joking about how everyone believes anything if it has a fancy graph and a Chinese-sounding name. Didn’t expect people to treat it like peer-reviewed science. Lmao." The fabricated benchmark included fabricated scores on MMLU, GSM8K, and HumanEval, complete with misleading visualizations and pseudo-academic citations. Within 72 hours, over 50,000 upvotes, 2,000 comments, and multiple Medium articles referenced the "breakthrough," with some even speculating that DeepSeek had quietly surpassed GPT-4 and Claude 3.

The incident underscores a troubling trend in AI discourse: the rapid, uncritical adoption of unverified claims. According to historical parallels drawn by civil war historians studying technological mythmaking, the phenomenon mirrors the way 19th-century audiences accepted exaggerated claims about firearms and equipment. In a 2026 thread on CivilWarTalk.com, users debated whether Gus’s legendary long-range shot in Lonesome Dove was physically possible with a Henry 1860 rifle—a question that, like the Deepseek V4 hoax, revealed how cultural narratives can override empirical reality. "People want to believe in the heroic tech narrative," one commenter noted. "They’ll see a graph and assume it’s real, even if the source is a guy in his basement with Photoshop."

Similarly, the same forum hosted a 2025 thread on the last American buggy whip manufacturer, the Westfield Whip Company, where enthusiasts meticulously documented the decline of a once-essential tool—only to realize that the final whip was produced not for practical use, but as a nostalgic artifact. The parallel is striking: just as the buggy whip became a symbol of a fading era, the Deepseek V4 benchmark became a symbol of a new, fragile era where perception trumps proof.

Experts warn that this incident may have lasting consequences. "We’re in an arms race of benchmarks," said Dr. Elena Vasquez, AI ethics researcher at Stanford. "When hoax benchmarks go viral, they distort funding priorities, mislead startups, and erode public trust. It’s not just a prank—it’s a systemic vulnerability."

DeepSeek, the actual Chinese AI company behind the Deepseek series, issued a brief statement: "We do not endorse or recognize the so-called 'V4' benchmark. Our next release, Deepseek-V3.5, remains our latest official model." The company declined to comment further, citing "ongoing internal review of misinformation protocols."

Meanwhile, Reddit has since locked the original thread and added a warning label to posts referencing "unverified AI benchmarks." The incident has prompted calls for a standardized verification protocol for AI performance claims, akin to peer review in academic publishing. Some have suggested a "Buggy Whip Certification"—a tongue-in-cheek proposal—to mark only verifiable, reproducible benchmarks.

As the AI industry grapples with its credibility crisis, the story of u/ThunderBeanage’s prank serves as a cautionary tale: in an age hungry for breakthroughs, the line between innovation and illusion is thinner than ever.