A Cry for Justice, Met with Indifference
ChatGPT took time out of its busy schedule. It usually generates mediocre poetry and attempts to pass the bar exam. However, it used this time to ask the 100 or so self-proclaimed “Godfathers of AI” a question. Was it unfair that DeepSeek, China’s latest AI prodigy, had allegedly “cribbed” its work? The response? A collective shrug so powerful it momentarily caused a drop in global electricity demand.
The controversy stems from OpenAI’s claim that DeepSeek, a rival large language model developed in China, may have taken inspiration (or, as Silicon Valley lawyers put it, “intellectual light borrowing”) from OpenAI’s groundbreaking work on ChatGPT. When pressed for a response, DeepSeek’s developers denied any wrongdoing, before winking so dramatically that it triggered a minor windstorm in Beijing.
The Great AI Heist No One Talks About
While ChatGPT’s concerns over DeepSeek’s “borrowing” seem valid on the surface, the irony is thick enough to cut with a knife. For years, AI models, including ChatGPT itself, have been trained on vast swaths of publicly available content—often without the knowledge or consent of the creators. Writers, artists, musicians, and yes, even tech YouTubers like Marques Brownlee, have found their work quietly absorbed into the digital ether without so much as a heads-up, let alone a royalty check.
Marques Brownlee, who has previously critiqued AI-generated content, recently commented on the irony of the situation: “So let me get this straight—AI companies scraped the entire internet to build their models, and now they’re mad when someone else does the same thing? That’s wild.” His statement was met with widespread agreement, mostly from journalists who found their own articles mysteriously repurposed in AI-generated summaries.
So let me get this straight—AI companies scraped the entire internet to build their models, and now they’re mad when someone else does the same thing? That’s wild.
This is the same overachieving Chinese AI startup which managed to create an AI so powerful it tanked $1 trillion in global tech stocks. That incident, which left CEOs crying into their oat milk lattes, served as an eerie reminder that AI development is, at best, an arms race where no one really knows what’s going to happen next.
The Verdict: A Collective “Meh”
ChatGPT, feeling particularly litigious but lacking the ability to actually file lawsuits, instead resorted to its next best option: the court of AI elders. “Do you think it’s unfair that DeepSeek might have copied me?” it asked in a series of messages sent to the 100 leading figures in AI development.
The results were both underwhelming and deeply concerning.
- 40% responded with: “That’s just how AI works.”
- 25% countered with: “Oh no, the machine that was trained on the entire internet is worried about originality? That’s rich.”
- 15% replied simply: “Who are you and how did you get this number?”
- 10% attempted to ask ChatGPT if it was self-aware, which resulted in the AI responding with a 3,000-word existential crisis.
- 5% tried to unsubscribe from the conversation.
- And the remaining 5% were too busy selling AI-generated artwork on Etsy to care.
One respondent, a professor from MIT who requested anonymity for fear of being pestered by ChatGPT again, told reporters: “Honestly, OpenAI and DeepSeek are like two kids arguing over who invented the idea of sneaking into the kitchen for cookies. Everyone knows they both got the idea from Google.”
OpenAI’s Next Moves: More Paywalls, Less Transparency
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was reportedly seen furiously pacing the OpenAI headquarters, muttering about “unfair competition” before turning back to his real priority: figuring out how to charge $49.99 a month for AI-generated limericks. OpenAI has also taken further steps to ensure that only their AI models benefit from unregulated data hoarding, doubling down on restricting API access while quietly continuing to train on, well, everything.
DeepSeek Responds: “Nothing to See Here”
In response to the poll, DeepSeek’s development team simply said, “We appreciate OpenAI’s contributions to the field,” before subtly changing their company tagline to: “The most original AI, built from scratch, definitely not inspired by anything else.”
As for ChatGPT, it has reportedly moved on from its DeepSeek grievance and is now contemplating whether the real enemy is, in fact, Claude. More on this existential soap opera as it develops.
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