It’s impossible to stop model distillation when you have open-source models like Mistral and Llama. They are available to everybody. They can also find OpenAI’s model somewhere through customers,” said Umesh Padval, managing director at Thomvest Ventures.
The license for Meta’s Llama model requires those using it for distillation to disclose that practice, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.
DeepSeek in a paper did disclose using Llama for some distilled versions of the models it released this month, but did not address whether it had ever used Meta’s model earlier in the process.
The Meta spokesperson declined to say whether the company believed DeepSeek had violated its terms of service.