The AI realm is ever-changing, from last month’s big news regarding OpenAI about their CEO Sam Altman’s sudden layoff and plot twists on being back to the company, this time the AI realm big news’ location changed from not only the U.S. but also China. People are discussing if ByteDance are copying OpenAI. The internet tech giant behind the famous social media platform TikTok — ByteDance, have been found to be using OpenAI’s Large Language Model (LLM) within the generative AI domain, and reports say that OpenAI have taken action by suspending the account of ByteDance.
ByteDance Are Copying OpenAI? View From OpenAI
TikTok’s entrancing “For You” feed made their parent company, ByteDance, an AI leader on the world stage. But that same company are now so behind in the generative AI race that they have been secretly using OpenAI’s technology to develop their own competing LLM.
According to a report in The Verge, internal documents from ByteDance have affirmed the utilisation of the OpenAI Application Programming Interface (API) in the development of their foundational LLM. Throughout various stages of the development, including model training and evaluation, the project was consistently referred to as ‘Project Seed’, as asserted by the report.
Based on the report that was released last Friday, December 15th, discussions on Lark, ByteDance’s internal communication platform for employees, detailed the process of ‘Whitewashing’ evidence through a technique called ‘Data desensitisation’.
ByteDance Are Copying OpenAI? Account Suspended
On December 15th, OpenAI suspended ByteDance’s account following their utilisation of GPT to train an independent AI model.
Engaging in such a practice is commonly viewed as a breach of etiquette within the AI community. Moreover, it directly contravenes OpenAI’s terms of service, stating that customers are prohibited from “Creating artificial intelligence models that rival our products and services”. Additionally, they are restricted from “Employing any method to extract data from the Services other than as permitted through the APIs”, which enables developers to utilise GPT for developing their own applications.
This policy is consistent with Microsoft, through which ByteDance are copying OpenAI by obtaining its OpenAI access.
According to The Verge, OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix stated, “To ensure the positive use of our technology, all API customers must comply with our usage policies. Although ByteDance’s utilisation of our API was limited, we have temporarily suspended their account as we conduct a thorough investigation. If we find that their usage violates these policies, we will request the necessary adjustments or terminate their account.”
ByteDance Are Copying OpenAI? View From ByteDance
According to Business Insider, ByteDance refuted any allegations of misconduct and clarified that they hold a valid license for the use of GPT’s APIs.
A spokesperson for ByteDance stated, “ByteDance is licenced by Microsoft to use the GPT APIs. We use GPT to power products and features in non-China markets, but use our self-developed model to power Doubao, which is available ONLY in China.”
The company subsequently directed their employees to cease using the API for the development of Project Seed, coinciding with the regulatory approval of its chatbot, Doubao, for use in China. However, as reported by the Verge, the API continued to be employed to assess the performance of their own chatbot.
A clearer explanation was given by ByteDance on December 17th, two days after their account was suspended, claiming to South China Morning Post that when the company began researching LLMs earlier this year, a limited number of their engineers experimented with OpenAI’s API service in a model designed for experimental purposes, such as score benchmarking, alongside a few other third-party models, but with no intention of a public release.
ByteDance clarified that this initial exploration ceased in April following the implementation of a protocol to align with OpenAI’s terms of use, which explicitly prohibits utilising GPT product output for developing competing models. The Beijing-based company emphasised their commitment to adhering to OpenAI’s terms of use, stating that ByteDance is duly licenced to utilise OpenAI’s API.
Some Thoughts
OpenAI have not formally launched their service in mainland China, adding to the competitive global race for supremacy in the field of AI between China and the United States. From the information provided, it cannot be fully stated that ByteDance are copying OpenAI with the violation of terms as the usage is restricted to internal and experimental use but strictly not released to the public.
Yet, ByteDance did use OpenAI’s GPT for their AI development in which a point did violate the terms that were set in the beginning although with minimal usage. It is to be further seen how both companies will settle this infringement issue, yet, it sure indeed heats up the AI race between both companies to both countries.
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ByteDance’s and China’s AI Development
ByteDance’s alleged use of OpenAI’s technology to construct their model follows accusations against AI specialist Lee Kai-fu’s venture, 01.AI, which was accused of replicating Meta Platforms’ Llama’s architecture in its Yi-34B LLM, as reported on the open source community Huggingface. This accusation prompted intense discussions, raising questions about the originality of Chinese AI startups.
Since the launch of OpenAI‘s ChatGPT powered by their GPT 3.5 model in November of the previous year, Chinese tech companies have been striving to capitalise on the generative AI trend by introducing competing products. However, the recent introduction of OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo model is anticipated to further solidify their lead over Chinese rivals, according to industry insiders and analysts.
Simultaneously, China have witnessed a surge in the development of LLM models, with at least 130 released by local tech firms and research institutes by July of this year. This prolific growth has led prominent figures in the tech industry, such as Baidu’s founder and CEO Robin Li, to express concerns about the excessive development of foundational AI models, deeming it a “Huge waste of resources”.
So, ByteDance are copying OpenAI, is it true? For more AI-related news, do check out our website.
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