White House accuses Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic tech for K3

A White House official accused Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic’s Fable AI model to develop Kimi K3, which launched last week.In a post on X on Wednesday, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios alleged the Chinese AI firm developed an internal platform to distill US models at scale, using methods designed to evade detection.“Legitimate AI distillation used to create smaller, more efficient models plays a vital role in this open innovation ecosystem,” he said. “However, large-scale, covert industrial distillation aimed at stealing proprietary U.S. technology and undermining American research is unacceptable.”Kimi K3 has emerged as one of China’s most capable AI models, intensifying Washington’s concerns that American models are being covertly used to accelerate China’s AI progress.However, some AI researchers questioned claims that Anthropic’s latest AI model was used to train Kimi K3. Anthropic’s Fable 5 was re-released on July 1 after it was quickly taken offline due to US export controls, while Kimi K3 launched on July 16, giving a narrow window for distillation attacks to occur.“There are only 15 days between fable 5 ban removal and kimi...