ByteDance's Project Seed relied on OpenAI's API; OpenAI suspended its account

What happened

ByteDance used OpenAI's technology to develop its own large language model, codenamed Project Seed, in nearly every phase of development, including training and evaluation, according to internal documents reported by The Verge and summarised by Slashdot on 15 December 2023. OpenAI's terms of service prohibit using model output to develop competing AI models. OpenAI said ByteDance's use of its API was minimal and that it had suspended ByteDance's account while it investigated further. Most of ByteDance's GPT usage went through Microsoft's Azure programme.

Why it may matter to you

Using one company's AI output to train a competing model is the kind of training-data practice this site tracks: it raises questions about whose work and whose terms govern model training, and about how platform terms are enforced.

What is not yet known

The outcome of OpenAI's investigation, and whether ByteDance's account was reinstated or terminated, is not stated in this report.