The Distillation Dilemma: When Competition Blurs into Theft The world of artificial intelligence is embroiled in controversy over distillation – a practice where companies use another's technology to train competing models at a lower cost.
At the center is Anthropic, a five year old company valued at nearly $1 trillion and soon to go public. As stakes rise, the line between fair competition and outright theft begins to blur.
Distillation can be done lawfully, but in Anthropic's case, head of threat intelligence Jacob Klein insists that what's happening is closer to theft.