Technology@lemmy.worldbyccunning@lemmy.world
22 hours

Apple Sues OpenAI, Accusing It of Stealing Company Secrets [🎁 nytimes gift link]

www.nytimes.com English

Apple on Friday accused OpenAI of stealing secrets about products still in development, setting up a legal face-off between two of the world’s biggest tech companies.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the consumer tech giant said that OpenAI, a leader in artificial intelligence that has a new hardware business, had asked job candidates from Apple to share details about secret projects and to bring device components and prototypes to their interviews.

Apple also accused an OpenAI employee of downloading internal documents from a laptop owned by the iPhone maker.

OpenAI used the confidential information to approach Apple’s manufacturing partners, including asking one partner to demonstrate Apple’s technique for finishing metal on its devices, the lawsuit says.

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    • vane@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7 hours

      When you’re AI company so you can’t stop stealing.

    • Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      8 hours

      I mean, yes, the entire premise of ChatGPT is “we stole all the data we could to give you really convincing, logically devoid, text generation!”

    • DevDave@piefed.socialEnglish
      14 hours

      It’s kinda insane to frame OpenAI as remotely equal to Apple with “two of the world’s biggest tech companies”.

      Apple has multiple profitable revenue streams, hundreds of physical stores, that giant donut super villain headquarters, they basically own multiple factory towns in Asia, and on top of it they have an ocean of capital hidden somewhere for a “rainy century” scenario. I think their only consistent loss leader is AppleTv, right?

      OpenAI’s business is generating something embarrassing like $100 for every $1000 spent (just random exaggerated numbers as sarcasm).

      This outrageously dishonest narrative is being pushed constantly everywhere and I am more than just sick of it.

    • DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      12 hours

      It was totally the AI guys… It’s evolving so fast even we can’t comprehend it. It’s totally not one of our engineers.

      Apple is just pissed nobody’s going for enhanced intelligence.

    • magnetosphere@fedia.io
      18 hours

      Most of the time, I don’t care about corporate slap fights, but this will be fun to watch.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14 hours

        If even half the accusations are true, then OpenAI doesn’t have a chance in hell of existing at the end of this. The accusation alone might sink the company. They’re projected to be completely out of money this time next year, they might have saved it with an IPO, but the general vibe is not optimistic for them, and that was before being accused of blatant industrial espionage of Apple IP.

        I have never once given Apple money, and very likely never will, but if they kill OpenAI and pop this bubble then I’ll give them a slight nod of respect before I go back to asking pointed questions about why all their factories need suicide nets.

          • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4 hours

            Suing as a patent troll, but this sound lass like Apple being Apple, and more like some serious, and highly illegal, industrial espionage from OpenAI and Sam Altman.

            Sam Altman built his business on theft, and may very well seriously overstepped here. I also expect a bunch of former Apple employees going to jail over the physical thefts, and that too will cause OpenAI problems because they asked for the thefts, and likely paid the former Apple employees.

        • Sundray@lemmus.orgEnglish
          12 hours

          It might be a long shot but there is a possibility that if they lose, OpenAI just hands the keys over to Apple. I don’t know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

        • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          6 hours

          I know of a bunch of Apple folks (through a family friend) who went to open AI early on for big pay raises, but said it sucked there and planned to cash out after a year or 2. I wonder if they’re on anyone’s radar. Gonna ask next time I see them.

        • errer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          16 hours

          Yeah ironically OpenAI is stealing hardware secrets here it sounds like

        • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          15 hours

          Youre right; its scraping data owned by someone with lots of money and lawyers.

            • lazynooblet@lazysoci.alEnglish
              10 hours

              Exactly. Comments from people not reading the article are not uncommon, but these haven’t even read the synopsis included in the post.

              • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
                4 hours

                Often, the subject of conversations drift or expand to adjacent and related subjects. I have seen so many of these comment police posts trying to constrain the comments to the point where essentially they’re just summarizing the article, and I dont understand why.

                In my case, I was replying to the previous poster, not the article. In his case, I dont know what his intentions were, but I also don’t care whether he read it for the context of the tiny thread it was in. I was responding to the comment he made in that thread.

                You can even make your own thread if you don’t like this one! Give it a whirl! You can engage with whatever content you want, or make your own. Theres a secret 3rd option, too: you can choose not to engage with it if you dont like it.

                I dont think we need 2 comment cops to write us a comment moving violation though. You can cover more ground if you split up and harangue twice as many people at a time.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
      21 hours

      Apple on Friday accused OpenAI of stealing

      That’s pretty much OpenAI’s modus operandi, is it not? Like, they’ve stolen from everyone else on the planet, why did Apple think they were special? It’s like they invited the Hamburgler to their BBQ and are shocked when all the sliders disappear.

      Illustrated

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21 hours

        There’s scraping data, which should be considered stealing, and then there’s asking people to steal company data as part of an interview process.

        This is actual industrial espionage. If true, it could be a big deal.

      • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21 hours

        Apple is very litigious when it comes to their products, and has the capital and the best lawyers in the world available for them to call on.

        The legal fees on this will cost millions.

        • eestileib@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          19 hours

          They ended up losing to Google on touch screens, but this seems like way more of a problem.