In another way, though, the move is a stamp of legitimacy on an AI model that has caused consternation for OpenAI over the past week. The controversy primarily centers on whether DeepSeek used OpenAI’s models to produce outputs (synthetic data) that DeepSeek then used to train or fine-tune its own models, a practice often called “distillation,” which is against OpenAI’s terms of service.
Since the launch of DeepSeek V3 (a large language model that served as the progenitor of R1), users have reported that the model often calls itself ChatGPT, which suggests that at least some ChatGPT-produced data was used to fine-tune V3’s behavior. It wouldn’t be the first time AI researchers have cribbed off of OpenAI: AI experts accused Elon Musk’s xAI of doing something similar with its Grok AI model in December 2023.
And that’s not the only issue at hand. In addition to the terms-of-service accusation and testy tweets from OpenAI employees, Microsoft also reportedly launched a probe into DeepSeek after Microsoft’s security researchers discovered that the Chinese company may have extracted substantial data for training purposes through OpenAI’s API during the fall of 2024, according to Bloomberg.
Despite the controversies, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman welcomed the additional competition from DeepSeek earlier this week. On Monday, Altman tweeted, “deepseek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price. we will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.”
As a response to R1’s rise, OpenAI is expected to release o3-mini through ChatGPT as soon as later today.
Article by:Source: Benj Edwards
