ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, had its account suspended by OpenAI for violating policies by using it to develop its own products.

According to a report from The Verge, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has been accused by OpenAI of violating its terms of service by using OpenAI's API (application programming interface) to develop its own chatbot "Project Seed" and instructing its employees to cover up evidence. As a result, OpenAI has suspended their account.

ByteDance Uses OpenAI Technology to Advance Its Language Model Development

The parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, has recently been exposed for improperly using OpenAI's technology to develop its own products, a move that clearly violates OpenAI's terms of use: "Not to develop any AI models that compete with the product ChatGPT or services, nor to extract data through its API service."

It is reported that ByteDance has been using the API services provided by OpenAI to assist in developing its own large-scale language model LLM named "Project Seed," which is used for applications such as algorithms and speech recognition, and has exceeded the specified API usage limit multiple times.

At the same time, reports also indicate that ByteDance was evidently aware of the violation of terms and even instructed employees through its internal communication platform to conceal evidence using "Data Masking" technology, leading to criticism within the artificial intelligence industry.

ByteDance claims that it had ceased using the API after releasing its chatbot " Dou Bao" in August, but reports show that it still used it to evaluate the performance of its products.

OpenAI Spokesperson: ByteDance Account Deactivated

It is understood that OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix confirmed this in a statement on Friday and deactivated ByteDance's OpenAI account:

While ByteDance's usage of our API was very minimal, all API users must comply with our usage policies, and we have suspended their account while we further investigate.

ByteDance spokesperson Jodi Seth told Business Insider that the company did not engage in any misconduct and had Microsoft's authorization to use GPT's API:

We use GPT to advance products in non-Chinese markets and use our own developed models to advance "Dou Bao," which is only available in the Chinese market.

It is reported that Dou Bao is an AI tool developed by the search engine Baidu and ByteDance, based on the Lark model, offering various functions such as chatbots, learning assistants, text and image creation.

News from several weeks ago indicated that ByteDance is developing a " custom ChatGPT-like chatbot tool" similar to OpenAI, seen as the company's further entry into the competition in the field of artificial intelligence.