Technology

I asked OpenAI the same. Only without the snark, and noted that US politicians and OpenAI pressers should not be considered evidence without facts:

Great question—and a healthy dose of skepticism.

If we assume U.S. lawmakers may be misrepresenting the situation or overstating the threat (intentionally or otherwise), then it’s worth asking: What counter-evidence or independent information exists that disputes the claims against DeepSeek?

Here’s what we can currently analyze:

1. 

OpenAI’s Role and Statements

• The accusation is that DeepSeek used OpenAI data without authorization.
• OpenAI has not released detailed technical evidence (as of now) proving DeepSeek “stole” data.
• It is also unclear what “unauthorized use” means here—was it scraping publicly available content generated by ChatGPT? That’s not the same as hacking or violating terms.

Counterpoint: Unless OpenAI provides forensic evidence (e.g., logs showing data scraping from banned accounts or circumvention of APIs), their claim is not independently verifiable.

2. 

Open-source AI Training Practices

• DeepSeek R1 and other models are trained on publicly available data, much like LLaMA, Falcon, Mistral, etc.
• Many open-source LLMs train on similar corpora, including data from books, code repositories, and even internet crawls, which may contain ChatGPT outputs.
• No proof has been provided that DeepSeek used proprietary datasets beyond what’s publicly available or scraped from the internet.

Counterpoint: If DeepSeek simply trained on web data that happened to contain ChatGPT responses (which are abundant online), that wouldn’t constitute theft by typical AI research standards.

3. 

DeepSeek’s Own Transparency

• DeepSeek has published detailed model cards and training parameters for R1, a transparency move rare among Chinese AI firms.
• This suggests a desire to appear cooperative or aligned with global AI openness norms—not necessarily what a covert “spy tool” would do.

Counterpoint: Spyware tools or state-controlled AI systems don’t usually go open source and document their architectures.

4. 

No Independent Audit or Third-Party Verification

• As of now, there’s no independent audit of DeepSeek’s model, training corpus, or infrastructure.
• The accusations rest heavily on political framing, not technical forensics released to the public.

5. 

Broader Pattern of U.S. Tech Nationalism

• U.S. lawmakers have a history of labeling Chinese tech firms as threats without providing concrete, public-facing evidence (Huawei, TikTok, etc.).
• This doesn’t mean the threats are false, but it does mean we should demand proof beyond committee soundbites.

TL;DR – Is there counter-evidence?

Not conclusive counter-evidence, but there’s a lack of compelling public proof supporting the claim. The case against DeepSeek is built on:

• OpenAI’s statements (without shared evidence),
• Political concerns about China,
• and suspicions rooted in strategic competition.

That’s not enough to say DeepSeek is innocent—but it’s not enough to prove guilt either