Distillation attacks are covert, industrial-scale campaigns to extract the capabilities of one model and replicate them in another, without the authorization of the original model’s developers.

Replace a few key words and it sounds like reading all the worlds media and offering a service that summarises it.

Don't scrape the scrapers, that's not fair! Expecting Executive Order against 'distillation' in 3, 2, 1...

"Now that we've distilled all we could lets close the doors so nobody can distill from us"

(1) This seems to be a pretty bad accusation to make without iron-clad proof.

(2) So their AI is not able to help defend against this.

(3) If GLM 5.3 really is that good why would anybody use Anthropic's products going forward, this almost reads like an ad for GLM.

(4) Regardless of whether it is true or not, the hypocrisy is off the scale, first you steal pretty much all of humanity's cultural output, then you try locking that up behind a paywall and complain when people do the same to you.

(5) All of this 'we'll make the world a better place' seems to be a smoke screen. If they really wanted to make the world a better place through AI then more AI and more providers of AI would be a good thing.

(6) Meanwhile, Anthropic seems to do next to nothing to stop people from using their tool being used for bad stuff, there are plenty of reports of this, far more than there are of people using GLM 5.3 for bad stuff. If they really cared so much about models being used for bad purposes they could do a very simple thing.

I find it hard to believe that Anthropic thinks this sort of strategy is going to be the winning one and it probably mirrors the degree to which they are eyeing their approaching IPO date. Anthropic is claiming it is altruistic towards humanity but that seems to come with significant strings attached which seem to spell 'control'.

"extract the capabilities of one model and replicate them in another, without the authorization of the original model’s developers. They are often conducted using networks of fraudulent accounts. These attacks allow companies to mimic frontier capabilities for a fraction of the development time and cost"

It turns into this:

"extract the CREATIVE WORK of one MAGAZINE/BOOK/PUBLICATION and replicate them in another, without the authorization of the original MAGAZINE/BOOK/PUBLICATION WRITERS. They are often conducted using networks of fraudulent accounts. These attacks allow companies to mimic CREATIVE WORK for a fraction of the WRITERS time and cost."

I think I have seen evidence to know the second paragraph is true, but I'm not sure about the first. I need to see the evidence from Anthropic.

I did this entirely using my own brain, without the help of LLMs. This is the most creative thing I have done in a year, I'm so proud of myself.

Ahem: https://www.felonybench.com/

I wonder why there is not even a single one of those allegedly "distilled"/"unsafe" model on that list, yet models of companies with "proportionally robust safeguards" are, hm?

> Distillation is a problem for every developer and platform

No, it is not. It's only a problem for you.

I'm angry and laughing at the same time. The audacity! The biggest theft of IP in history, and then the "attacker" whines the same thing happens to them?

To be fair and balanced: • Anthropic payed up (a little) for their theft. • They pretend to be concerned about cyber and national security at least.

There needs to be a coherent position on knowledge and intellectual property: either it's free to take and share, then no one can complain. Or one can "own" an idea, then the AI companies first need to pay up for real (how is Sony doing it?). They can license (subscribe!) all the works used for training and after that they can bitch around about distillation "attacks".