OpenAI's Dean Ball: distillation plays a bigger role in China's catch-up than realized
eliebakouch · x · 2026-10-18
Dean Ball, now at OpenAI, says distillation has always been part of the explanation for why Chinese models trail US ones so closely on benchmarks — but joining OpenAI updated his view: distillation likely plays an even bigger role than he realized. Elie Bakouch asks for a percentage and whether it varies across labs.
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