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Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

stolen-thoughts.com

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Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#261

Post by blackqueeriroh »

elzbardico wrote: post #50
azinman2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning blocks are not stolen/mined from the internet at large directly. They’re the result of a lot of research, time, money, and expertise into creating a reasoning model. To me the answer is quite clearly no, especially when the encrypted blocks demonstrate they want to protect it.

Most post-training tasks are based on real open source projects. A lot of time on real issues posted on issue trackers. Besides that, the capabilities of a model are heavily dependent on the unsupervised learning phase, that gobbles all kind of other people's IP without giving a fuck. All the underpaid work behind the masses of third world programmers creating those post-training datasets would be completely uselless…

Are you a judge or a lawyer? If not, then you don’t know one way or another.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#262

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

nonethewiser wrote: post #192
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing foundational about the idea that data can be owned. It conflates these things: - This is about me - I created this - Neither of the above, but according to some story I get to control who sees it Maybe some of those ideas are worth building into our society, but let's not pretend that The Code of Hammurabi gave a damn about intellectual property. IP was invented by the church so they could censor edit…

Data? Stealing pertains to more than just data. I think you agree with me that stealing isnt a made up term. Please reread what he said. He didnt say “distilling” was morally charged made up term by future monopolists. He said “stealing.” Thats insane.

Yeah, that's what we're talking about, data. You can't steal data, because you can't own data. People who try to upgrade data related crimes to "theft" are participating (knowingly or otherwise) in propaganda, and many of us wish they would stop.

You're fixating on a few clumsily placed words and coming away with a meaning which that poster did not intend. Consider absorbing the whole context before going on the offensive. The link they shared makes it pretty clear what they were trying to say even if they fumbled the words a little.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#263

Post by thejazzman »

jadar wrote: post #254
jdub wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We "agree" to many things that are deeply unfair.

Yet we have the option to decide not to participate. That is an option.

I’m just driving by here but they bill by tokens — it’s a stretch to turn around and deny your right to see them. And it’s especially egregious when the tokens admittedly, routinely do the opposite of what you instructed.

But personally it’s not about right and won’t it’s just blatant bullshit.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#264

Post by dnautics »

nonethewiser wrote: post #180
Aissen wrote: post #138

"Stealing" something you already paid for (tokens), but that you can't have access to(!). And trained on the sum of human knowledge. Training on other model outputs ought to be business as usual, stop using morally charged terms made up by future monopolists: https://thomasdullien.github.io/posts/2026-06-15-rl-economic...

> stop using morally charged terms made up by future monopolists Lets not gloss over this claim. Being: “Stealing is a morally charged term made up by future monopolists.” I strongly disagree. Stealing is not a made up term and property rights are foundational for any society. Your take is at least sensationalist if not malicious.

> property rights are foundational for any society

arguable, and even more tenuous for intellectual "property", which was a relatively recent invention. plenty of interesting arguments over this way back to even the 19th century.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#265

Post by dnautics »

drdaeman wrote: post #233
nonethewiser wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem. He said stealing in general is a made up term. Do you think stealing is real?

Read it in the context. The “made up” wasn’t a general statement. No one argues stealing doesn’t exist at all. My friend’s bike was stolen. What’s made up is application of this word to situations that are incompatible with what stealing is supposed to mean. Compare this to “the smell of soup and the sound of money” type “theft”.

"copying is not theft/ stealing a thing leaves one less left/ copying it makes one thing more/ that's what copying's for"

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#266

Post by dnautics »

nonethewiser wrote: post #196
matheusmoreira wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stealing" of non-rivalrous goods? I don't "think" it's not real. I know .

Reread what he called a morally charged, made up term by future monopolists. Stealing. Not distilling, not stealing “non rivalrous goods.” Just stealing. Do you agree with what he actually said?

when you steal my bike you deprive me of my ability to use it. if i copy your notes, you still have access to them and may make use of them. unless somehow copying destroys the original, it is not stealing.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#267

Post by michaelmrose »

nonethewiser wrote: post #191
drdaeman wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and we collectively had this decades ago already. “Stealing” instead of “infringement” is originally MAFIAA language intentionally (ab)used to encourage emotional reaction despite original owner not losing their copy. If you broke into a data center, pulled a hard drive and drive off with it - that’s stealing. If you accessed a copy of some information - that’s infringement, unauthorized access, or some other vio…

One problem. He said stealing in general is a made up term. Do you think stealing is real?

If you already know the answer and everyone already knows the answer you asking this question is wasting everyone's time.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#268

Post by michaelmrose »

super256 wrote: post #184
theyliesoeasily wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely stole the data to make the models, but they do not say that they stole the data to make the models, but they do say that others using their outputs for unauthorized purposes is stealing. Do you see the point?

Crawling the internet and dumping it to disk is not "stealing".

It's not stealing but arguing that it's not infringement because its on the internet is pretty obviously nonsense.

Re: Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

#270

Post by Gud »

mlazos wrote: post #251
ashdksnndck wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you hired a consulting firm to write a report, and they delivered the report but not the internal conversations they had when developing it. You exploit a vulnerability in their phone system to get those conversations. You can argue over semantics of whether “theft” is what you did, maybe the right word is “espionage” or “spying”, but that either way we probably agree you are guilty of something? Paying for t…

Except you paid for the words of the conversation..

And how much of our output have the copied to train their models on?
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