OpenAI Claims DeepSeek Distilled US Models To Gain an Edge
7 59An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US AI models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, according to a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News.
In the memo, sent Thursday to the House Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of "ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs." The company said it had detected "new, obfuscated methods" designed to evade OpenAI's defenses against misuse of its models' output.
OpenAI began privately raising concerns about the practice shortly after the R1 model's release last year, when it opened a probe with partner Microsoft Corp. into whether DeepSeek had obtained its data in an unauthorized manner, Bloomberg previously reported. In distillation, one AI model relies on the output of another for training purposes to develop similar capabilities.
Distillation, largely tied to China and occasionally Russia, has persisted and become more sophisticated despite attempts to crack down on users who violate OpenAI's terms of service, the company said in its memo, citing activity it has observed on its platform.
7 comments
Unfair? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @11:36AM (#65986796)
What the fuck is unfair? If you don't like how they are using your service, stop them. Cut them off, feed them garbage, get clever and solve the problem.
What are lawmakers going to do about it? Order President Trump to nuke China? More tariffs? Sanctions on Russia?
Re:Unfair? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by piojo ( 995934 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @12:20PM (#65986904)
It's also continually ironic that the companies that used the world's knowledge without compensation to train their models are complaining when another company uses their models to train models (though they almost certainly are paying for the privilege).
Re: Unfair? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Tschaine ( 10502969 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @01:49PM (#65987114)
The big AI labs are also using sophisticated methods to avoid detection. This is one of the big drivers behind web-scraping botnets that run on residential IP addresses in crapwear and outright malware. Which in turn is why so many small websites are opting into DDoS protection services. Which in turn is why everyone is complaining about CAPTCHA interruptions everywhere they browse.
Said the companies that distilled the internet (Score: 5, Insightful)
by xack ( 5304745 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @11:39AM (#65986806)
Millions of webmasters have had their servers vandalized by AI companies, and then all the wholesale book destruction. Now they are getting a taste of their own medicine it's not so nice is it.
Next they will be interrogating humans in torture chambers to train their models. I'm calling it now.
Re:Said the companies that distilled the internet (Score: 5, Insightful)
by kencurry ( 471519 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @11:45AM (#65986820)
Note how they use a term "distillation". Like that isn't what they've been doing this whole time lol.
No polite response available. (Score: 5, Insightful)
by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Friday February 13, 2026 @11:53AM (#65986830)
Dear OpenAI,
Go fuck yourselves.
For years, individuals, other companies, publishing industries across the board, and user groups have been fed the ever-loving fuck up with you stealing everything that isn't bolted down to train your fucked up vision of a future devoid of work, in a world that doesn't value humans when they don't work. And you and your ilk have proclaimed repeatedly that this is just the way things have to be, that the information belongs to you if it exists because you can access it. That there is no unfairness in you taking any information you can find because all information should go into training your new computer god.
And now that someone has done the exact fucking same god damned thing that you've been doing all along, you whine about it like a spoiled fucking child that had one tiny piece of its candy taken from a pile of ever-expanding, continually self-replenishing candy that will never end and never could end.
Fuck you, you entitled pieces of god damned shit. Combine this with your future visions of completely disrupting society for your financial benefit, while potentially causing the entire economy to collapse whether your visions come true, or you crash out in your quest and take the entire dream-o-sphere of Wall Street with you, and you are beyond disgusting. We're sick of your shit, and I hope to crap that this begins to drive home the fact that the term "corporation" does not deserve the respect it gets in society today. You are a parasite, through and through. And just because you found a tapeworm within your shit, it doesn't mean you aren't a tapeworm in society's shit yourself.
Good grief, some of us can't wait until you AI based companies stop being the 100% focal point of all world governments and all economic concerns. It's like we've handed the reins of society over to the most narcissistic, self-obsessed idiots in all of existence, and somehow they always find a way to double-down on the ugliest parts of humanity in their quest.
boo fuckin' hoo (Score: 5, Insightful)
by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) on <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday February 13, 2026 @11:58AM (#65986838)
They have no respect for the law or the wishes or creators. Now they want the other companies to be forced to respect those things? They can get fucked all day.