https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003151/bytedance-china-openai-microsoft-competitor-llm

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ByteDance is secretly using OpenAI's tech to build a competitor

ByteDance is secretly using OpenAI's tech to build a competitor

/

'They really just don't want to get caught.' The frenzied race to win
in generative AI means that even the biggest players are cutting
corners.

By Alex Heath, a deputy editor and author of the Command Line
newsletter. He's covered the tech industry for over a decade at The
Information and other outlets.

Dec 15, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC

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An illustration of ByteDance's logo
The logo for ByteDance, which owns TikTok. Illustration by William
Joel / The Verge

TikTok's entrancing "For You" feed made its parent company,
ByteDance, an AI leader on the world stage. But that same company is
now so behind in the generative AI race that it has been secretly
using OpenAI's technology to develop its own competing large language
model, or LLM.

This practice is generally considered a faux pas in the AI world.
It's also in direct violation of OpenAI's terms of service, which
state that its model output can't be used "to develop any artificial
intelligence models that compete with our products and services."
Microsoft, which ByteDance is buying its OpenAI access through, has
the same policy. Nevertheless, internal ByteDance documents shared
with me confirm that the OpenAI API has been relied on to develop its
foundational LLM, codenamed Project Seed, during nearly every phase
of development, including for training and evaluating the model. 

Employees involved are well aware of the implications; I've seen
conversations on Lark, ByteDance's internal communication platform
for employees, about how to "whitewash" the evidence through "data
desensitization." The misuse is so rampant that Project Seed
employees regularly hit their max allowance for API access. 

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