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Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

reuters.com

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Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#31

Post by stcredzero »

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

Tesla has displayed a chronic inability to manage their own supply chain

I thought Tesla brought manufacturing in house to simplify their logistics.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#32

Post by basseq »

ddoolin wrote: post #3

This might be unpopular here, but I kind of wish this and other similar systems were more open source, or even just shared between companies. If companies are going to be putting a system out there on the streets anyway, and Tesla's is comparatively more quality and perhaps thus safer (I'm not making a claim, just positing a hypothetical), then it would only be to everyone's benefit if every company didn't have to (o…

Counterpoint strawman: keeping these systems proprietary might also drive more innovation, as companies "re-inventing the wheel" will come up with different solutions or features that will continue to push the bleeding edge of the industry.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#33

Post by 3pt14159 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

You may be correct, but your argument doesn't yet convince me.

Rephrased your argument is:

1. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using or used the information.

2. The above point only likely if Tesla's logistics processes are valuable.

3. We know know that they are not valuable because Tesla has had trouble keeping its supply chain optimized.

I take the most amount of issue with #3, but also with #2. That they have trouble shipping whole cars on time does not prove to me that some sub-process of their manufacturing isn't well run or novel. Quite the opposite, really, since they're much more likely to have found alternate approaches since they were building lines from scratch and, thus, not tied to the old ways of solving things. That they're failing to ship on schedule is normal for operations at that size for the first time.

But even leaving aside #3, I still think #2 presumes a level of understanding at Zoox that I don't necessarily think is fair to assume. It may have taken Zoox time to realize that the Tesla approach was wasteful, but that doesn't excuse them from using stolen IP.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#35

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #28
gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email l…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#36

Post by twblalock »

dessant wrote: post #8
ddoolin wrote: post #3

This might be unpopular here, but I kind of wish this and other similar systems were more open source, or even just shared between companies. If companies are going to be putting a system out there on the streets anyway, and Tesla's is comparatively more quality and perhaps thus safer (I'm not making a claim, just positing a hypothetical), then it would only be to everyone's benefit if every company didn't have to (o…

There needs to be a shift in how proprietary technologies that have universal benefits for our society are viewed. It may be normal for a company to withold information to keep a competitive edge in a nascent industry, but it will also mean that their press releases lauding reduced death rates in their products will be double edged swords, unless they make the ethical decision to share their improvements with other p…

Sharing technology would reduce death rates. But if technology was not shared, competitors would need to reduce death rates even further in order to compete, which might be better for society overall.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#37

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #35
throwaway5752 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email l…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#39

Post by duxup »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #24
duxup wrote: post #15

It's hard to know what to think of these things with the past strange comments about "saboteurs" and Elon's own strange legal choices related to the SEC. Is this real or more of a sort of blame game strange conspiracy theory thing?

Strange legal choices wrt to the SEC? Just wait for the judge decision: the SEC is in a clear overreach here, as all the tweets they cited in their filing are non material. They even misquoted the tweet to say "500K" instead of " about 500K" and anyone can add up the previsouly published numbers to conclude the company should reach a runrate of 500K at the end of the year (Musk tweeted nothing new, it was already dis…

It's a strange legal choice when you could just not tweet stuff that any lawyer would tell you not to, first to get in trouble, then to extend it...

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#40

Post by jeltz »

nwah1 wrote: post #5
ddoolin wrote: post #3

This might be unpopular here, but I kind of wish this and other similar systems were more open source, or even just shared between companies. If companies are going to be putting a system out there on the streets anyway, and Tesla's is comparatively more quality and perhaps thus safer (I'm not making a claim, just positing a hypothetical), then it would only be to everyone's benefit if every company didn't have to (o…

Open source tends to work great for re-implementing technology that is already understood. It tends not to work for exploratory research, since that requires risk and ingenuity, not a designed-by-committee approach. R&D of this sort is funded best with a strong profit motive, unless the government is willing to shell out for it.

I would not describe many open source projects as designed-by-committee, and while open source might be less suited for exploratory research there have been quite many novel things first implemented in open source projects. Look at the various video codecs or the innovations in compiler technology gcc has contributed to, or the plenty of innovations made in various open source databases.
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