Is China Really Stealing AI Technology from U.S. Companies?

中国真的在窃取美国公司的人工智能技术吗？

The NYT breaks down why 'distillation' became a flashpoint in US-China AI talks. Anthropic and OpenAI accuse Chinese firms of distilling their proprietary models, but experts say the claim is overblown—distillation only captures output text, not source code or training internals. Chinese labs still need to build a strong base model first. The piece also notes Anthropic just paid $1.5B for using copyrighted data, and OpenAI faces a similar suit from the NYT. U.S. courts haven't ruled on whether distillation violates trade-secret law.

Why it matters: NYT's dissection of the 'distillation = theft' claim, backed by technical explanation and the Anthropic/OpenAI copyright cases as legal reference points. Docked slightly because it's a synthesis piece rather than original reporting, and the distillation mechanics still have a ...