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If adversarial distillation from closed U.S. frontier models contributed to Kimi K3 at all, it was to a relatively small degree — Chinese labs like Moonshot AI are genuinely solving the same hard problems as OpenAI and Anthropic, not just copying their outputs.
Nathan Lambert argues Kimi K3's strength shows Chinese labs can build frontier models through genuine execution, not mainly by distilling U.S. models, undercutting the 'IP theft' narrative around Chinese AI. ✦ AI generated
Nathan Lambert · Interconnects · 2026-07-20 · original ↗
It should be clear looking at this model that if adversarial distillation from the closed frontier models in the U.S. contributed, it is at most to a relatively small degree. AI observers who followed the distillation panic and came away with the wrong conclusion that Chinese AI labs are only producing good models due to IP theft are in for an awakening
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- ·Adversarial distillation from U.S. models, if present, was minor
- ·Moonshot AI is solving the same hard problems independently
- ·Model strength undercuts the 'IP theft' narrative
- ·Some observers concluded Chinese labs only copy U.S. models
- ·That conclusion is 'in for an awakening', says Lambert
- ·Chinese labs achieving frontier results through real execution
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