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Of course it matters. Regardless of whether distillation is legal, there is a difference between training a model with and without distillation. For one thing, the distilled model wouldn't exist without the model it distilled.

Also, companies that use distillation may be competitive but seem unlikely to surpass the companies that are training these models from scratch.

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>but seem unlikely to surpass the companies that are training these models from scratch

Then why is it a problem?

Another serious question.

Trying to get my head around what the root of the objection is here. There must be some fear, but if that fear is not a fear of being surpassed in the market, then what is the fear?

A fear of competition causing a failure to recoup the trillions invested in AI via sky-high margins, and starting a (short) chain-reaction that causes the bubble to pop (or fizzle). A lot of people have a lot riding on the AI bubble not popping.

I didn't say it was a problem, I said it "mattered"

If I wanted to argue that it's a problem, I'd just say that companies investing billions in training frontier models should reap the rewards. And distillation is essentially theft.

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