Is China Stealing American AI? Why ‘Distillation’ Has Washington Up in Arms

U.S. security agencies on Tuesday accused six Chinese artificial intelligence companies of systematically exploiting American AI models to train their own systems. The agencies, including the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the Chinese companies have engaged in “aggressive, malicious, and targeted distillation activities at an industrial scale.” The key word is “distillation,” a technique by which a new AI model taps the expertise of an existing one. Here is a guide to the issue and how it will affect the U.S.-China race for supremacy in AI, with President Trump set to meet Chinese leader Xi…