MechanismArticle

Trying to legally stop distillation is nearly impossible because it is functionally indistinguishable from ordinary API querying, so policy should instead embrace openness via a new copyright framework that indemnifies labs while letting others benefit from what models learn.

Ben Thompson argues distillation can't realistically be blocked since it's just API queries, so the better path is a copyright policy that indemnifies labs and lets their learned knowledge benefit everyone. ✦ AI generated

Ben Thompson · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-07-20 · original ↗

Share card ↓Export .md Export .txt

Stopping distillation — which is literally just querying the API — is nearly impossible; the U.S. should go the other way and lean into a new copyright policy that both indemnifies the labs and also guarantees that what they learned fuels further innovation for everyone else.

Read full article ↗excerpt · fair-use quotation

✳ API ✳ copyright policy

Around this claim

Mechanism · 1

Distillation — using outputs from one AI model to tweak or fine-tune another — is extremely hard if not impossible to detect or prove, even though it typically violates terms of service.CJ · Syntax · conf 75%

Evidence · 1

Extends · 1

Distillation is a common industry practice, not IP theft, and the real issue is that closed labs like Anthropic could stop it with KYC but choose not to because it would slow their growth.Chamath Palihapitiya · All-In Podcast · conf 80%

This moment responds to

explains mechanism → Trying to slow or ban the open model ecosystem is futile, unsafe, and anti-freedom, because it would concentrate AI development among a select few and cut off outsiders' ability to adopt the technology.the author · Interconnects