OpenAI has voiced concerns that China's DeepSeek AI models, known for their remarkably low cost, may have been developed using OpenAI's data. This revelation, coupled with DeepSeek's market impact, prompted Donald Trump to call it a wake-up call for the U.S. tech industry. Nvidia, a major player in the GPU market crucial for AI, suffered a historic stock plunge of 16.86%, wiping nearly $600 billion off its market value. Other tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Dell also experienced significant stock declines.
DeepSeek markets its R1 model as a significantly cheaper alternative to Western counterparts like ChatGPT, built upon the open-source DeepSeek-V3. This model reportedly requires less computing power and had an estimated training cost of just $6 million, a claim met with some skepticism. Regardless, DeepSeek's emergence has raised questions about the massive investments American tech companies are making in AI, unnerving investors. Its rapid ascent to the top of the U.S. app download charts further highlights its impact.
Bloomberg reported that OpenAI and Microsoft are investigating whether DeepSeek utilized OpenAI's API to integrate OpenAI's AI models into its own. OpenAI acknowledged that Chinese companies, among others, constantly attempt to leverage leading U.S. AI companies' models through distillation, a technique violating OpenAI's terms of service. OpenAI emphasized its commitment to protecting its intellectual property and highlighted its collaboration with the U.S. government to safeguard its technology.
David Sacks, President Trump's AI czar, suggested evidence points to DeepSeek using distillation to extract knowledge from OpenAI models. He anticipates leading AI companies taking preventative measures against such practices.
The situation has highlighted the irony of OpenAI's position, given accusations of its own use of copyrighted internet material in creating ChatGPT. Criticisms have pointed out the hypocrisy of OpenAI's stance, considering its own alleged reliance on copyrighted content.
OpenAI previously stated that creating AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material is impossible, citing the vast scope of copyright protection. This assertion was made in a submission to the UK's House of Lords, emphasizing the reliance on copyrighted works for training large language models.
The use of copyrighted material in training AI models has become a major issue in the industry. Lawsuits, including one from the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, and another from 17 authors, highlight the ongoing legal battles surrounding this practice. OpenAI maintains that its training methods constitute "fair use." A previous court ruling, however, established that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted due to the lack of a human-creative nexus.
