Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#331

Post by paxys »

an0malous wrote: post #207
Robdel12 wrote: post #70

OpenAI is about to get ROCKED on this. From this report, this looks open and shut. Apple has basically infinite money and incredible lawyers. Not sure what OpenAI can counter with unless they have clear, hard evidence this hasn’t been happening.

What kind of repercussions will OpenAI face?

In the extreme case it may result in OpenAI having to abandon their in-progress consumer hardware products, but honestly that might actually be good for them. I really can't see all that investment being worthwhile. Better for them to stick to their core competency.

More realistically - OpenAI will cooperate, the specific employees involved will be punished, there will be a settlement, and this whole matter will be forgotten.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#332

Post by rising-sky »

mayneack wrote: post #242
generj wrote: post #31

Apple kindly wanted to make OpenAI add in some legal liabilities to their IPO filling. Discovery is going to be great fun (for Apple).

this will settle before it gets to discovery I bet

Yes, exactly. Probably a settlement similar in spirit to Google v Uber RE: Anthony Levandowski stealing self driving IP

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#333

Post by blueblisters »

Robdel12 wrote: post #70

OpenAI is about to get ROCKED on this. From this report, this looks open and shut. Apple has basically infinite money and incredible lawyers. Not sure what OpenAI can counter with unless they have clear, hard evidence this hasn’t been happening.

OpenAI will just put the employees involved under the bus. They can claim the information acquired wasn't used for OpenAI's benefit or authorization especially since the device isn't actually out yet.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#334

Post by QQ00 »

willtemperley wrote: post #226
ungreased0675 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t put my company’s IP on their servers, because I don’t trust them to not steal it.

I do hope Anthropic are better with IP, and I think they may be. Given Dario Amodei hasn't been sued by OpenAI while building Anthropic this seems likely. I think Amodei may actually be quite a good human, despite my trust in big tech being at an all-time low.

Amodei tried to regulation capture the AI access and also tried to ban open weights. So I disagree with you.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#335

Post by MichaelDickens »

joshstrange wrote: post #2

Some pretty damning stuff: > OpenAI also instructs new hires on how to avoid scrutiny when they leave Apple. For example, Mr. Tan warns them not to tell Apple that they have taken jobs at OpenAI, so they can stay at Apple as long as they can. > Apple says it discovered a pattern of OpenAI recruits emailing themselves confidential information when leaving Apple, including Tan. > OpenAI apparently used confidential App…

> OpenAI apparently used confidential Apple hardware information when approaching Apple suppliers, and tricked one company into using a "specific trade secret metal-finishing technique" for an OpenAI device by claiming it had Apple's permission to do so.

Reminds me of how Sam Altman told the board that a safety reviewer had approved one of their AI models when the reviewer had done no such things.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#336

Post by paxys »

Reminder that Apple hired 30+ engineers from Masimo and stole multiple trade secrets, including their blood-oxygen monitoring tech, leading to a $634 million judgement against them. They also asked President Biden to intervene and pressure the ITC to reverse their ruling.

Not saying OpenAI is innocent here of course, but really no large corporation is. This is just how the game is played.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#337

Post by SXX »

decimalenough wrote: post #329
SXX wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power. Given your story its not sounds like this is power grab. More like they actually on spectrum and have some mental issues on top this. Or had mental breakdown because something happened before that money arrived. Situations when people do something weird, bad or just plain evil for money and power are usually logical. E.g people think they got access…

If you're earning $100k in Silicon Valley, your expenses will swallow up almost all of that. A sudden $100k windfall, on the other hand, tax free and suitably invested,will let you live for years quite comfortably in many poor countries.

Sorry to disappoint you, but no you cannot live "comfortably" in "poor countries" for $100,000 for "years". Well, unless you mean like two years.

I lived across South East Asia for more than decade and now live here full time. I have to live on around $20,000 / year most of the time since starting my company. And I do not live anywhere close to what average US / EU citizen will call "comfortable" let alone people from valley.

Stories of rich living for cheap in poor countries its just that: stories. It only possible if you preserve your US salary. For $50,000 post tax a year you can live well unless you have kids that need not a "poor country education".

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#338

Post by busymom0 »

m463 wrote: post #285
Robdel12 wrote: post #70

OpenAI is about to get ROCKED on this. From this report, this looks open and shut. Apple has basically infinite money and incredible lawyers. Not sure what OpenAI can counter with unless they have clear, hard evidence this hasn’t been happening.

I hope they can pull it off. That said, silicon valley is full of stories where people brazenly stole from company A to start company B and pretty much got away with it. EDIT: this is the one I remember: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_Design_Systems%2C_Inc....

The silicon valley TV show even had episodes on this! Man I miss that show. They'd have so much funny material nowadays if they came back.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#339

Post by jtfrench »

Until the industry addresses the Original Sin of Generative AI (and the ascendance of Thievery Corporations), we should expect more and more of this. So far, theft has been rewarded. As long as you make enough money, people seem to be okay with ignoring long-lasting impacts of intellectual theft. As long as you become King of the Cannibals, it seems many are happy to remember you as King and not as the Cannibal.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#340

Post by crossroadsguy »

throw0101a wrote: post #223
Aurornis wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets even worse. The person not only kept the laptop and used an exploit to download confidential Apple documents, they bragged about it to a contact who was still working at Apple who was also feeding him information: > Liu allegedly kept an Apple-issued laptop after departing the company and exploited a vulnerability to download dozens of confidential Apple documents while he was working at OpenAI. He also maint…

> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them […] At $WORK we have the option of getting a work smartphone or having the company pay for (at portion of) our monthly mobile bill. I chose a work device because I do not want any cross-contamination. (Others chose payment because they did not want the 'hassle' of carrying a second device (and to save some cash).)

Yeah. I was encouraged to take the lump-sum money my company paid (like most happily did - not taxed; amount equalling latest base iPhone cost) and get MDM installed on the personal phone so that we could access email and everything on that. Laptop was company issued anyway. I, and very few, chose company phone and I got a new SIM just for the company and set it up (they had to pay the SIM bill as well).

A nice side effect of that was I could clearly control when the phone won't even be on me and I had set that expectation - like treks, or short personal vacations, sleeping hours (yes!). I had championed the "follow the sun" policy in my company when it came to on-call rotation, but somehow some of my fellow country men/women colleagues took pride in "being available". Anyway, their time, their choice.

Later some of my colleagues were surprised when they couldn't install certain apps, couldn't do certain things and often used to wonder "does the company take screenshots of my phone?" because the permission was present :D

Post reply on HN