{"id":239119,"date":"2026-05-03T20:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T00:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/03\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-heres-why-thats-controversial\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:10:12","slug":"musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-heres-why-thats-controversial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/03\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-heres-why-thats-controversial\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk admits distilling OpenAI data \u2014here\u2019s why that\u2019s controversial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com.au\/news\/billionaires\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-for-his-xai-heres-why-thats-controversial\/\">Musk admits distilling OpenAI data \u2014here\u2019s why that\u2019s controversial<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com.au\/news\/billionaires\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-for-his-xai-heres-why-thats-controversial\/\">https:\/\/www.forbes.com.au\/news\/billionaires\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-for-his-xai-heres-why-thats-controversial\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-03 20:15:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.forbes.com.au\">www.forbes.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPublished on\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 4, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elon-musk-said-thursday-his-artificial-intelligence-startup-xai-has-used-technology-from-openai-to-train-its-own-ai-models-a-process-commonly-called-distilling-making-the-acknowledgment-as-he-was-cross-examined-in-his-lawsuit-accusing-the-rival-ai-firm-of-abandoning-its-promise-of-a-nonprofit-structure-by-switching-to-a-profit-driven-model\">Elon Musk said Thursday his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has used technology from OpenAI to train its own AI models, a process commonly called distilling, making the acknowledgment as he was cross-examined in his lawsuit accusing the rival AI firm of abandoning its promise of a nonprofit structure by switching to a profit-driven model.<\/h5>\n<p>Elon Musk arrives for the trial of against OpenAI held at Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, California Tuesday, April 28, 2026.<br \/>Photo by Jessica Christian\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Takeaways<\/h5>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>An OpenAI attorney asked Musk if xAI ever \u201cdistilled\u201d technology from OpenAI, to which Musk responded, \u201cGenerally A.I. companies distill other A.I. companies,\u201d according to The New York Times.<\/li>\n<li>Distillation involves using outputs from a larger AI model to train a smaller one, and Musk said xAI \u201cpartly\u201d used OpenAI\u2019s technology to train its own AI models.<\/li>\n<li>OpenAI\u2019s terms of service prohibit outputs from being used to train competing AI models.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-ai-distillation\">What Is Ai Distillation?<\/h5>\n<p>Distillation uses an AI model to teach a smaller one, allowing the lesser model to operate with efficiency while using less computing power. The method can be used to train the smaller model without high expenses typically attached to creating an AI model from scratch.<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-so-controversial-about-distillation\">What Is So Controversial About Distillation?<\/h5>\n<p>At the heart of the controversy around distillation is that one company essentially uses another company\u2019s AI data to train its AI model, without incurring the steep costs of research and development. Training AI models like ChatGPT and Google\u2019s Gemini can cost over $100 million, with development costs expected to increase even further with the creation of more sophisticated AI models. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup accused of distilling OpenAI and Anthropic technology, has claimed it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com.au\/news\/billionaires\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-for-his-xai-heres-why-thats-controversial\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Musk admits distilling OpenAI data \u2014here\u2019s why that\u2019s controversial https:\/\/www.forbes.com.au\/news\/billionaires\/musk-admits-distilling-openai-data-for-his-xai-heres-why-thats-controversial\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-03 20:15:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.forbes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/960x0-9.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-239119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239121,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239119\/revisions\/239121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}