ChatGPT Maker Suspects China’s Dirt Cheap DeepSeek AI Models Were Built Using OpenAI Data — and the Irony Is Not Lost on the Internet

OpenAI suspects that China's DeepSeek AI models, significantly cheaper than Western counterparts, may have been trained using OpenAI data, sparking controversy and market turmoil. The emergence of DeepSeek caused a dramatic drop in the stock prices of major AI companies, with Nvidia experiencing its largest-ever single-day loss.

DeepSeek's R1 model, based on the open-source DeepSeek-V3, boasts significantly lower training costs (estimated at $6 million) and computational requirements compared to Western models like ChatGPT. While this claim is debated, it has raised concerns about the massive investments made by American tech companies in AI. DeepSeek's app even topped download charts in the U.S.

OpenAI and Microsoft are investigating whether DeepSeek violated OpenAI's terms of service by using its API for model distillation – a technique to extract data from larger models. OpenAI confirmed its awareness of such attempts by Chinese and other companies and highlighted its efforts to protect its intellectual property (IP), including collaboration with the U.S. government.

David Sacks, President Trump's AI czar, corroborated the suspicion of data extraction from OpenAI models, anticipating further measures by leading AI companies to prevent such practices.

The situation highlights the irony of OpenAI's position, given its own history of utilizing copyrighted material to train ChatGPT. OpenAI previously argued that creating AI models like ChatGPT without copyrighted material is impossible, a stance supported by a submission to the UK's House of Lords. This argument is further complicated by lawsuits from the New York Times and 17 authors alleging copyright infringement.

The legal landscape surrounding AI training data remains complex, with a 2018 U.S. Copyright Office ruling stating that AI-generated art is not copyrightable due to the lack of a "nexus between the human mind and creative expression." This ongoing debate underscores the challenges and ethical considerations surrounding AI development and the use of copyrighted material.