This incident occurred in August 2024, and while ByteDance claims it only affected a research project, the company reported a significant loss of over $10 million due to the disruption.

Despite the claims of substantial damages, ByteDance denied that the incident caused over $10 million in losses, asserting that it did not impact commercial operations.

The company clarified that the intern's actions did not affect its formal commercial projects or large language AI models, emphasizing that its main operations remained intact.

In response to the incident, ByteDance reported the misconduct to the intern's university and relevant industry bodies for further investigation.

ByteDance has claimed that the impact of the incident has been exaggerated on social media, leading to further scrutiny of the company's AI practices.

The alleged sabotage involved the intern planting malicious code that slowed down the AI model training, which relies on over 8,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs.

The incident also highlights ByteDance's broader strategy of increasing reliance on AI for content moderation, which has resulted in significant layoffs.

As ByteDance continues to invest heavily in generative AI technologies to compete with rivals like OpenAI and Baidu, this incident raises questions about the integrity of its development processes.

Overall, the termination of the intern and the subsequent fallout underscore the challenges ByteDance faces in navigating both technological innovation and regulatory scrutiny.

ByteDance has terminated an intern for allegedly 'maliciously interfering' with the training of its AI models, specifically impacting the generative AI product Doubao.

This incident comes amid ongoing concerns from US officials about ByteDance's potential threats to national security, particularly regarding its AI developments.

The situation gained traction on social media, particularly due to its connection with ByteDance's popular generative AI model, Doubao.