How do you distill a closed model? Reddit probes Anthropic's claims against Chinese rivals

LaughLegit7275 · reddit · 2026-09-19

A Reddit user asks how vendors like Anthropic and OpenAI, whose models were never open-sourced, can be "distilled" by competitors — a charge Anthropic has repeatedly leveled at Chinese labs. The post contrasts open-source distillation with the commonly assumed route for closed models: mass-generating training pairs via APIs, a practice vendor ToS explicitly prohibit, and questions whether such usage amounts to "stealing."

Original post →

More from Models

Models channel →