Athira Sethu
Kochi, 30 January 2025
Claims of a group allegedly linked to the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek may have illegally accessed data from OpenAI’s technology, according to Microsoft and OpenAI. It was discovered by Microsoft’s security team last fall when they observed unusual activity regarding people believed to be connected to DeepSeek collecting large amounts of data using the OpenAI API. The OpenAI API permits developers to leverage OpenAI’s AI models within their applications; however, such usage requires a paid license.
Microsoft, which partners with OpenAI and is its largest investor, alerted OpenAI about the suspicious activity. This could be a violation of OpenAI’s terms, or it could suggest that the group worked to bypass restrictions on how much data they could gather.
DeepSeek, a rising AI company from China, recently launched a new model called R1, which has been praised for its ability to reason like humans. This model has been viewed as a competitor to other US-based models by such companies as OpenAI, Google, and Meta. According to DeepSeek, R1 is equivalent to-and even better than-the best models in the US for math and general knowledge, and it was developed at a fraction of the price. The main reason for such a reaction by US tech firms is that significant AI stocks such as Microsoft and Google have plunged in value as a result.
David Sacks, who played a role in AI during the Trump administration, said there’s “pretty solid evidence” DeepSeek used models from OpenAI to train its own AI via a process known as “distillation.” One AI model employs the output from another to train itself in those same abilities.
In reply, OpenAI noted that China and other countries’ companies are always trying to use its models for their own improvement. They said they are working to safeguard their technology and working in close collaboration with the US government to keep its most advanced AI from falling into competitors’ hands.
So far, no official comments about the investigation by OpenAI or Microsoft have emerged, and requests for information made to DeepSeek have gone unresponded to.
