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U.S. Agencies Warn Chinese AI Companies of Systematic Model Copying
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In Short: U.S. agencies have warned that top Chinese AI companies have been systematically copying American models, raising concerns about intellectual property and safety.
U.S. agencies have warned that top Chinese AI companies have been systematically copying American models, according to reports. The FBI, NSA, and CISA issued an alert on Tuesday, stating that companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and xAI have been mined by Chinese counterparts since 2024.
The report, which was published by NBC News, indicates that the scale and sophistication of these campaigns suggest that distillation is not a supplementary activity but a critical core of the Chinese companies' AI model development. Distillation, a process where smaller, more efficient models are created from larger ones, is widespread in the AI industry, though it often violates terms of service.
According to reports, the practice has been ongoing for years. OpenAI, for instance, accused DeepSeek of 'inappropriately' basing its model on ChatGPT in 2023. The U.S. government has increasingly alleged that Chinese models are built by distilling American ones, with the practice being against AI companies' terms of service.
The U.S. agencies' report highlights the potential risks of this practice, including the circumvention of safety guardrails built into American systems. President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 15, which could potentially address these concerns.
Traditional weather models, which rely on reanalyses, have been compared to AI weather models. While AI models can achieve similar forecast performance with less computing power, they often require estimates for conditions without real-world measurements. This highlights the complexity and challenges in developing robust AI models.
What's still developing
- Many weather models make use of what’s called a “reanalysis,” which is a sort of model of its own.
- Nearly all AI weather models have been relying entirely on reanalyses, with machine-learning algorithms training on global reanalyses and spitting out a weather map in the same format.
- For a number of variables, their comparison to the initial six-hours-ahead forecast from the other models shows WeatherNext 3 doing worse before pulling ahead for the rest of a 15-day forecast.
- Traditional weather forecast models often also take in other raw data, capturing as much information as possible to accurately represent the current state of the atmosphere so the model can use physics to simulate conditions forward.
- Tuesday’s report said the distillation campaign had come “likely with Chinese government awareness,” but it did not claim that China’s intelligence played a role.
- American companies have made scattered accusations of distillation since at least last year, when OpenAI said DeepSeek had “inappropriately” based its model on ChatGPT.
- “Legitimate AI distillation used to create smaller, more efficient models plays a vital role in this open innovation ecosystem,” Kratsios wrote, echoing language in his April memorandum.
Sources
- NBC Newslink