OpenAI suspends ByteDance's account over 'secretly using' its AI tech

San Francisco: Microsoft-backed OpenAI has suspended Chinese internet giant ByteDance's account after a report said the TikTok's parent company is using OpenAI's technology to develop its own large language model (LLM) in the generative AI era.

According to a report in The Verge, internal ByteDance documents confirmed the "OpenAI API has been relied on to develop its foundational LLM”. It was codenamed "Project Seed” during nearly every phase of development, including for training and evaluating the model, the report claimed.

The conversations on Lark, ByteDance’s internal communication platform for employees, showed how to “whitewash” the evidence through “data desensitisation," said the report late on Friday.

ByteDance was yet to comment on the report. OpenAI later suspended ByteDance’s account after it used GPT to train its own AI model. An OpenAI spokesperson said that all API customers must adhere to “our usage policies to ensure that our technology is used for good”.

“While ByteDance’s use of our API was minimal, we have suspended their account while we further investigate. If we discover that their usage doesn’t follow these policies, we will ask them to make necessary changes or terminate their account,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

ByteDance has allegedly been violating the developer license of both Microsoft and OpenAI by using GPT-generated data to train its own, competing model in China. Reports surfaced in June this year that ByteDance was testing an AI-powered chatbot among employees, joining rival Chinese giants Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu in a race to create a Chinese version of ChatGPT.

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