Global AI experts push back on US ‘distillation’ claims against Moonshot’s Kimi K3 model

Global AI experts push back on US ‘distillation’ claims against Moonshot’s Kimi K3 modelResearchers point to the lack of evidence for any distillation claims, while some highlight Kimi K3’s technical innovations3-MIN READ3-MIN9ListenPublished: 8:30pm, 23 Jul 2026The global AI community has pushed back against the Trump administration’s claims that Moonshot AI’s groundbreaking Kimi K3 distilled US models, citing a lack of justification and arguing that the practice does not constitute intellectual property theft.In separate posts on X on Thursday, a number of AI experts called the accusations “political” and “reckless”, pointing out that an AI model’s output was not copyrighted.A Moonshot employee on Thursday hit back at the US officials’ claims that the Chinese company conducted “large-scale, covert industrial distillation” against US models including Anthropic’s cutting-edge Fable 5, by pointing out the narrow window between the release of Kimi K3 and Fable 5.Select VoiceSelect Speed0.8x0.9x1.0x1.1x1.2x1.5x1.75x00:0000:001.00x