The Final Shift

Lead Story · IEEE Spectrum AI

AI Models Overthink Problems—and It’s a Security Risk

Large language models (LLMs) that can think through problems step-by-step have significantly increased the scope of tasks that AI can tackle. But new research suggests these reasoning capabilities also introduce a critical vulnerability that could allow attackers to slow these systems to a crawl. While earlier generations of LLMs would immediately produce a response to a user’s request, today’s most advanced models generate an internal monologue where they break down the problem into steps and r

Jul 8, 2026