Y Combinator's Garry Tan Calls for Open-Weight AI Labs to Distill Frontier Models

Y Combinator president Garry Tan has called on U.S. open-weight AI laboratories to distill frontier AI models, making them more widely accessible. Tan argues that frontier models are trained on publicly generated human knowledge, and therefore capable AI should be treated as a form of public good. His remarks reflect a broader debate in the AI industry over proprietary versus open access to advanced AI systems. Tan's position suggests he believes restricting access to powerful AI runs counter to the public interest given the origins of the data used to train such models.