Creators of Chinese AI accused of data theft from ChatGPT
Photo: DeepSeek accused of stealing data from OpenAI (deepseek.com)
Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAI’s technology was improperly accessed by a group linked to the Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, Bloomberg reports.
According to the sources, Microsoft security researchers noticed in the fall that individuals potentially connected to DeepSeek were extracting large amounts of data using OpenAI's API (Application Programming Interface).
Software developers can pay for a license to use the API to integrate OpenAI's proprietary AI models into their own applications.
Microsoft, which is a technological partner and major investor in OpenAI, alerted OpenAI about this activity. Such behavior may violate OpenAI’s terms of service or indicate that the group aimed to bypass OpenAI’s data access restrictions.
Trump’s camp accusations
David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence czar, also claimed there is "substantial evidence" that DeepSeek relied on OpenAI's model results to help develop its own technology. Sachs described a technique called "distillation," where one AI model uses the results of another to learn and develop similar capabilities.
"There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled knowledge out of OpenAI models and I don’t think OpenAI is very happy about this," Sachs said.
In response to Sachs' comments, OpenAI did not directly comment on DeepSeek but acknowledged that companies from China and other countries continuously attempt to replicate the models of leading American AI companies.
Chinese AI
Earlier in January, DeepSeek released a new open-source AI model called R1, which disrupted the market dominated by OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, as well as American competitors like Google and Meta Platforms.
The Chinese startup claimed that R1 competes with or even surpasses products from leading US developers in various industry benchmarks, including mathematics and general knowledge, and was created with minimal costs.
This potential threat to the dominance of American companies has led to a drop in tech stocks related to AI, including Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Google's parent company Alphabet, wiping out nearly $1 trillion in market value overall.
