Chinese Rivals Pulled 28.8 Million Conversations From Claude, Anthropic Tells Congress to Step In Anthropic has told U.S. lawmakers that operators linked to Alibaba ran the largest known effort to extract Claude's capabilities, generating more than 28.8 million exchanges through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts. The company is urging Congress to crack down on AI model distillation. Anthropic is pressing U.S. lawmakers to tighten the rules around AI model distillation, after accusing operators tied to Alibaba of running the biggest known attempt to siphon the capabilities of its Claude chatbot. In a June 10 letter to Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, the company alleged that operators linked to Alibaba and its Qwen AI lab generated more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude between April 22 and June 5, using nearly 25,000 accounts it described as "fraudulent", meaning they did not represent real, organic users. What a distillation attack actually does The technique, known as a distillation attack, allegedly zeroed in on Claude's agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon planning skills. By harvesting how the model responds, rivals can reproduce advanced behavior without paying the enormous cost of training a frontier AI system of their own. "Beyond its scale, this campaign was striking for its brazen nature," Anthropic wrote, noting that "Alibaba is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, maintains business operations in the United States, and is accountable to U.S. investors and regulators." Framed as a national security threat Anthropic argued the issue runs deeper than intellectual property. It cast large-scale distillation as a national security problem, one that could speed up China's military and cyber AI capabilities while shrinking the United States' technological lead. "When PRC labs distill these capabilities from U.S. models, they capture the returns on American investments without bearing the costs or risks associated with training frontier AI models," the letter said. "This inverts the economic logic that underwrites American AI leadership, turning billions of dollars' worth of research and development, compute, and other U.S. investments into a subsidy for our competitors." The appeal lands as Washington sharpens its focus on protecting U.S. AI dominance. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order widening AI-powered cybersecurity programs, after holding it back over worries it might weaken America's standing against China. What Anthropic wants Congress to do The company laid out a list of asks for lawmakers: • Expand intelligence sharing between frontier AI developers and the U.S. government. • Clarify antitrust rules so AI companies can share information about distillation attacks. • Tighten export controls on advanced AI chips and compute. • Close loopholes that let Chinese firms tap overseas data centers. • Impose penalties on companies behind large-scale model extraction. An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the letter, but said: "We believe combating the threat of illicit distillation requires coordinated action between government and industry, and we will continue working with Congress and the administration to maintain American AI leadership." Not the first such accusation The letter builds on claims Anthropic made in February, when it said Chinese AI developers DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax had generated more than 16 million Claude exchanges using roughly 24,000 fraudulent accounts. Those earlier allegations drew pushback from observers who pointed out that AI firms lean on similar techniques when training their own systems. Anthropic's response: conventional distillation is a legitimate way to build smaller, cheaper models, but pulling frontier capabilities through fraudulent access breaks its terms of service. A blurry line across the industry The fight over distillation has grown messier lately. In April, Elon Musk testified in federal court that xAI had "partly" used OpenAI models while training Grok, a reminder that distillation is a well-worn industry practice, even as companies keep arguing over where legitimate training ends and unauthorized extraction begins. What this means for you • For AI users and developers: If Congress tightens distillation rules and export controls, access to advanced AI tools and chips could become more restricted, especially for work touching Chinese firms. • For investors: A national security spotlight on Alibaba and Chinese AI labs adds regulatory risk to those names and could shape how the U.S. AI sector competes going forward. Questions & Answers 1. What is Anthropic accusing Alibaba of? It claims operators linked to Alibaba ran the largest known effort to extract Claude's capabilities through a distillation attack. 2. How many exchanges and accounts were involved? More than 28.8 million exchanges between April 22 and June 5, using nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts. 3. What is a distillation attack? It is a technique that harvests a model's responses so rivals can copy its advanced behavior without training their own frontier system. Here it targeted Claude's agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon planning. 4. Whom did Anthropic write to? Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, in a June 10 letter. 5. What does Anthropic want Congress to do? Expand intelligence sharing, clarify antitrust rules, tighten chip and compute export controls, close data center loopholes, and penalize large-scale model extraction. 6. Has Anthropic made similar claims before? Yes. In February it said DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax generated more than 16 million Claude exchanges using roughly 24,000 fraudulent accounts. 7. How does this connect to Elon Musk? In April, Musk testified that xAI had "partly" used OpenAI models while training Grok, showing distillation is a common industry practice. https://trendkia.com/en/ai/claude-se-28-8-miliyana-batachita-khinchane-ka-aropa-anthropic-ne-congress-se-chini-pratidvndviyon-para-shiknja-kasane-ko-kaha-3060 TrendKia — Har trend, sabse pehle.