There really isn't any moral argument against distillation, which is itself pretty goddamn benign. It's pretty simple. Someone pays for Claude access. Claude outputs tokens that are not copyrighted. Then you train on those tokens, which doesn't create a derivative work in the first place.
Is it theft? Well, no. There's no authentication bypass here, no Claude model leak. At best it is violating the terms of use, kind of like how it is violating the terms of use to scrape many websites that AI scrapers scraped.
Is it immoral? Why would it be, exactly? Distillation is not a forbidden technique with moral implications. In fact, there is quite compelling evidence that Anthropic themselves were distilling from OpenAI in early Claude models. It helped them bootstrap if nothing else. There is no special moral code that makes distillation forbidden any more than training off of people's works without permission, or even express non-consent, is forbidden.
Really the more concerning aspect of this is the deception of using Kimi and expecting Kimi output and getting Claude instead, but I would like some independent confirmation that this is even something Moonshot really did before raking them over the coals, rather than just assuming it's true because Anthropic said so. How exactly did they figure out, considering ZDR? It deserves more information.
I do agree that there is a tendency for people to justify CCP human rights violations by trying to equate them to much lesser but similarly shaped transgressions from Western governments, but that's an unrelated issue entirely. The story regarding distillation is consistent: Sorry, but I can't afford enough tiny violins to express my lack of giving a shit. I harbor no ill will, I truly hope the golden parachutes that Sam and Dario fly out on are adorned with the finest materials.
Comments
There really isn't any moral argument against distillation, which is itself pretty goddamn benign. It's pretty simple. Someone pays for Claude access. Claude outputs tokens that are not copyrighted. Then you train on those tokens, which doesn't create a derivative work in the first place.
Is it theft? Well, no. There's no authentication bypass here, no Claude model leak. At best it is violating the terms of use, kind of like how it is violating the terms of use to scrape many websites that AI scrapers scraped.
Is it immoral? Why would it be, exactly? Distillation is not a forbidden technique with moral implications. In fact, there is quite compelling evidence that Anthropic themselves were distilling from OpenAI in early Claude models. It helped them bootstrap if nothing else. There is no special moral code that makes distillation forbidden any more than training off of people's works without permission, or even express non-consent, is forbidden.
Really the more concerning aspect of this is the deception of using Kimi and expecting Kimi output and getting Claude instead, but I would like some independent confirmation that this is even something Moonshot really did before raking them over the coals, rather than just assuming it's true because Anthropic said so. How exactly did they figure out, considering ZDR? It deserves more information.
I do agree that there is a tendency for people to justify CCP human rights violations by trying to equate them to much lesser but similarly shaped transgressions from Western governments, but that's an unrelated issue entirely. The story regarding distillation is consistent: Sorry, but I can't afford enough tiny violins to express my lack of giving a shit. I harbor no ill will, I truly hope the golden parachutes that Sam and Dario fly out on are adorned with the finest materials.