In brief
OpenAI has accused Chinese rivals of leveraging its technology to create competitive AI tools, notably the DeepSeek app, prompting investigations into data misuse and security risks.
The maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, has raised concerns that competitors, especially from China, are leveraging its technology to expedite the development of their own artificial intelligence (AI) applications. This week, the launch of DeepSeek, a Chinese app that mimics ChatGPT's capabilities at a lower cost, has caught attention and overshadowed OpenAI's position as a leader in the AI field.Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is probing if OpenAI’s data was improperly utilized, since it is a key investor in the company. David Sacks, the newly appointed White House "AI and crypto czar", suggested that DeepSeek might have applied a method known as knowledge distillation to enhance its performance using OpenAI's models. His claims highlighted the urgency for US AI firms to implement measures to safeguard their technology from such copycats.In a statement, OpenAI indicated that it's crucial to work with the US government to protect its industry-leading AI models from ongoing attempts at unauthorized replication. Academic experts raised doubts about DeepSeek's claims of low-cost training, suspecting it might have misappropriated data from OpenAI, casting doubt on the legitimacy of its claims.Concerns surrounding DeepSeek extend to national security, as federal officials assess potential risks its emergence poses to the US technology landscape. Correspondence from the US Navy warned its personnel against using DeepSeek due to security and ethical concerns related to its developmental practices. Furthermore, DeepSeek reported suffering from cyber attacks and has temporarily restricted new user registrations due to "large-scale malicious attacks." Critics warn users to be cautious, given the app's data collection methods and its server storage in China.
