The AI community is abuzz after a new TechCrunch article revealed something both shocking and deeply controversial: Chinese AI company DeepSeek may have used Google’s proprietary Gemini data to train its latest model. If this turns out to be true, it could mark one of the boldest — and possibly most unethical — moves in recent AI development history.

According to reports, DeepSeek's training dataset includes a suspiciously large amount of data that appears to originate from Gemini outputs. While DeepSeek claims the model was trained on “publicly available data,” experts are beginning to question just how “public” that data really was.

This situation raises critical questions:

• Where do we draw the line between open-source inspiration and IP infringement?

• Should tech giants like Google be more transparent with how their data is protected?

• Is this the inevitable future of the AI arms race, where boundaries are blurred in pursuit of performance?

In a field where innovation often outpaces regulation, we must ask: Are we doing enough to set ethical standards before it’s too late?

We’ve seen this before — companies scraping the web or even other AI models for training data. But if DeepSeek did, in fact, leverage Gemini’s outputs, it’s not just a gray area — it’s a signal that the rules of the game may be breaking down.

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💬 What do you think? Does this cross the line — or is it just the reality of modern AI development? Drop your thoughts in the comments!