Microsoft-backed OpenAI has suspended ByteDance's account amid reports that TikTok is using OpenAI's technology to develop its own large language model (LMM) artificial intelligence.
According to The Verge, an internal ByteDance document confirms that "the OpenAI API has been used to develop its underlying LLM." According to the report, the model is codenamed "Seed Project" and includes training and evaluating the model.
According to the report, the chats on Feishu, which is used by Byte's internal employee communication, show how the company is "whitewashing" evidence of using other technologies through "data masking."
Later, The Verge reported that because Byte's move violated Microsoft and OpenAI's developer licenses, OpenAI spokesman Niko Felix issued a statement confirming that ByteDance's account had been temporarily banned. The statement is as follows:
"All API customers are required to adhere to our usage policy to ensure that our technology is being put to good use. While ByteDance has made minimal use of our API, we have suspended their accounts while further investigation continues. If we find that their use does not comply with these policies, we will ask them to make the necessary changes or terminate their account. ”
Jodi Seth, an overseas spokesman for ByteDance, also appears to have responded to the report, acknowledging that "the data generated by GPT was used to label models in the early development of the 'seed project'", but it has been removed from model training around the middle of this year. She also said: "ByteDance gets Microsoft's license to use the GPT API. We use GPT to drive product features for non-Chinese markets, but we use our own developed model to drive bean bags. Bean buns are only available in China. ”