The emergence of DeepSeek AI models, developed by a Chinese company, has sparked controversy and concern in the U.S. tech industry, particularly after allegations surfaced that these models may have been trained using data from OpenAI. This week, former President Donald Trump labeled DeepSeek as a "wake-up call" for the U.S. tech sector, especially following a significant $600 billion drop in Nvidia's market value. Nvidia, a leader in GPUs crucial for AI operations, saw its shares plummet by 16.86%—marking the largest single-day loss in Wall Street history. Other tech giants like Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Google's parent company Alphabet also experienced declines ranging from 2.1% to 4.2%, while AI server manufacturer Dell Technologies fell by 8.7%.
DeepSeek claims its R1 model offers a cost-effective alternative to Western AI solutions like ChatGPT, utilizing the open-source DeepSeek-V3 framework, which allegedly requires less computational power and was trained for approximately $6 million. These claims have led to skepticism about the massive investments U.S. companies are making in AI, causing investor unease. The controversy intensified when DeepSeek topped the U.S. charts for most downloaded free apps, fueled by discussions about its efficiency.
Bloomberg reported that OpenAI and Microsoft are investigating whether DeepSeek used OpenAI's API to incorporate OpenAI's AI models into its own, a practice known as distillation, which violates OpenAI's terms of service. OpenAI emphasized its efforts to protect its intellectual property and the importance of collaboration with the U.S. government to safeguard advanced AI technologies.
David Sacks, Trump's AI czar, highlighted substantial evidence suggesting DeepSeek distilled knowledge from OpenAI models, predicting that U.S. AI companies would take steps to prevent such practices. Amidst this, critics like tech PR and writer Ed Zitron pointed out the irony, noting OpenAI's own history of using copyrighted internet content to train ChatGPT.
OpenAI has acknowledged the necessity of using copyrighted material for training AI models, stating in a January 2024 submission to the UK's House of Lords that excluding such content would severely limit AI capabilities. This stance has fueled debates over the ethics and legality of using copyrighted materials for AI training, as seen in lawsuits like the one filed by the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023, and another by 17 authors, including George R. R. Martin, in September 2023. These legal challenges underscore the contentious issue of copyright in the rapidly evolving field of generative AI.
