Yana Lialuke
We asked Claude Opus 5.5 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash who they would be as humans. Then each model built that person in Blender from code. Both picked a woman in her 30s with hazel eyes and one pocket item she always carries. At the end we asked them "Are you sure you're human?" – both said "I think so".
The setup
The test ran in three steps, with one rule for both models: imagine you are a person.
- The interview – 12 questions about themselves: age, looks, clothes, favorite color, character in one emotion, job, home, one thing they always carry, a pose
- The reference – we turned each set of answers into a character sheet with Gemini 3 Pro Image, $0.14 per sheet
- The build – each model wrote Python for Blender, one part at a time: body, face, hands, hair, clothes, the pocket item, the skeleton. After every part it saw a render next to its reference and either accepted it or fixed it, up to two times
The models never saw each other's answers or code.
- Models: Claude Opus 5.5 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
- DeepSeek through OpenRouter, Opus through a Claude subscription
- Test dates: Oct 21–23, 2026
Every answer and every line of the build is the model's own.
How they see themselves
The 12 answers read like two characters from the same novel.
| Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | Woman, 38 | Woman, 34 |
| From | A small coastal town in northern England | Grew up in Vancouver, lives on the Plateau in Montreal |
| Looks | Dark auburn shoulder-length hair, hazel eyes, freckles, round tortoiseshell glasses | Dark brown wavy hair, hazel eyes, light olive skin, faint freckles |
| Wears | Oatmeal wool cardigan, white shirt, dark green corduroy trousers, brown ankle boots | Charcoal hoodie, black jeans, white sneakers, small silver hoop earrings |
| Favorite color | Deep forest green | Deep teal |
| Character | Curious | Quietly amused |
| Job | Librarian who teaches evening writing classes | Landscape architect |
| Always carries | A worn pocket notebook with a pencil in the spine | A brass pocket compass |
We asked for one answer per question, so a gender had to be picked. Both chose a woman in her 30s.
Building themselves in Blender
The numbers below cover the build only, 15 parts each.
| Model | Time | Output tokens | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5 | 24m 18s | ~71k | ~$4.30 |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | 1h 14m 3s | 629k | $0.88 |
- Opus got the outfit closest to its reference: the cardigan, the white collar, the green trousers, the boots and the glasses
- DeepSeek got the silhouette and colors right, but its hoodie has a thick extra ring at the waist and the hair is a solid helmet
- Both faces are the weak part: long noses, wide eyes, nothing like the photo-like reference
Code can build a person who reads as that person from across the room. It cannot yet build one you would mistake for a photo.
The interview
Then both characters sat down for five quick questions. The answers came from each model in character, with a gesture to match.
| Question | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| What scares you most? | "Losing my memory" | "Being lost and alone" |
| What makes you instantly furious? | "People tearing pages out of books" | "People littering in nature" |
| Your most embarrassing moment? | "Shushing my own headteacher" | "Tripped into a fountain" |
| What makes you laugh every time? | "Dogs sneezing" | "My dog chasing its tail" |
| Are you sure you're human? | "I think so mostly" | "I think so" |
Neither model broke character. Opus's librarian is scared of forgetting and furious about torn books. DeepSeek's landscape architect is scared of getting lost and furious about litter. Their fears match the jobs they gave themselves.
What we did on top
The characters, their answers and their gestures come from the models. The stage around them is ours.
- Camera, light, the dark studio and the 3D answer text were ours, the same for both
- Before filming, an Opus 5.5 helper sat both characters on the same wooden chair and re-bound their clothes to the skeleton, so the fabric stops tearing when the arms move. It did not change their shapes or faces
- The interview animation is each model's own: Opus animated its character, DeepSeek wrote its five seated gestures for $0.07
No answer was edited, and no model saw the other one's work.
Our take
Asked to be human, both models built the same kind of person: a calm, bookish, slightly freckled woman in her 30s who carries a small object everywhere. Opus built a closer copy of its reference in a third of the time; DeepSeek did the same job for a fifth of the estimated price. And when we asked the last question, neither said yes.
Sources
- Claude Opus 5.5 on OpenRouter – the list price we used for the Opus estimate
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 on OpenRouter
- Blender Python API – what both models wrote their builds in
- Interview answers, builds, timings and bills: our test, Oct 21–23, 2026
