US Military AI Advantage Eroded by Model Distillation (warontherocks.com)

• Distillation enables copying frontier models at a fraction of training cost.
• Stanford AI Index 2026 shows narrowing gap between US and Chinese models.
• Proposes early access via liaisons and staggered release to preserve advantage.

"Adversaries can extract the logic of publicly released frontier AI models via APIs, bypassing Pentagon systems. The distillation technique undermines US hardware export controls. The article proposes a two-pronged strategy: stationing liaisons in AI firms for early warning and a high-velocity refinement pipeline to maintain the edge."