Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets • Hacker News Board

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

#771

Post by nullbio » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #689

user43928 wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an interesting thought. They could run some sort of analysis to find high value input, such as proprietary technology, algorithms, or strategy. Then they could group them together for one specific topic, and produce a report that analyzes if the information is plausible. If so, they can have it send to staff for review, who could then create a test set that rewards the model for going into the direction of th…

It's actually simpler: your code is not the valuable part, it's the telemetry/metadata/conversation surrounding your session that's valuable. Every time you press escape, every time tell Claude/Codex that it's being an idiot, your back-and-forth conversations, etc. "when/why did we fail and how can we improve?" is what they want to know. They can use LLMs to launder confidential customer sessions into trainable data.…

Exactly. They can also feed you a stupider model to goad you into handing over more of this training guidance as well. The incentives are aligned for evil behavior. Open source really needs to win this race, or we need much tighter scrutiny on these AI companies.

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

#772

Post by sealeck » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

semiquaver wrote: post #739

jtfrench wrote: post #339

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.

IP infringement is not theft . There’s a whole “you wouldn’t download a car” meme about this. Intellectual property has always been a made up idea that has been abused for years by big companies far in excess of its societal value. I’m not sad that the force of IP restrictions seems to be weakening, but I am surprised to see so many people in tech that previously were pretty lassez faire on IP to suddenly take it so…

I think this comment is quite disingenous -- it's like if there's a rule that says "nobody can walk on the grass" that you object to because you'd like to have a picnic with some friends; your claim is that if someone gets out a bulldozer and drives it across the lawn to make a parking lot followed by an army of lawyers that anyone who wanted to picnic is objecting purely because it's a convenient way to criticise the bulldozers.

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

#773

Post by deebosong » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #86

ErneX wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t the first time something like this happens and I always wonder how are these seemingly smart people earning good money so dumb.

INT 18 WIS 3 is a terribly dangerous build in this world.

To your point, I've come across many who conflate the 2.

Wisdom seems like making good choices for long-term positive outcomes, where there are no rulebooks, lots of uncertainty, and the incentives thrown in your face to act in one direction are only a tiny fraction of the whole picture.

Intelligence seems like an aptitude to grasp concepts that lend itself to wielding a specific thing to a certain utilitarian end.

I'm sure others have said it better than me. But the folks I've met who are obviously intelligent seem to lack the ability to understand the consequences of their choices, and have already predetermined they're not only justified in their myopia, but somehow assume/ presume social support from everyone around them no matter how short-sighted their ideas are that come with obvious negative consequences if you look even one-step beyond their immediate outcomes.

Something like that. All to support your point.

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

#774

Post by sealeck » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

Tarq0n wrote: post #716

jtfrench wrote: post #339

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.

Ignoring patent law has done great things for 16th century continental Europe and more recently China. Rent-seekers and ladder kickers shouldn't always be respected, they'll slow down societal advancement to a crawl if you let them. The question is whether the gains these AI companies are making from their transgressions are overly privatized.

And we can also ignore model law; we should require OpenAI/Anthropic to provide unrestricted access (at standard API rates) to their competitors so they can use this to train new models.

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

#775

Post by kzrdude » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #685

OpenAI are really starting to look and smell like “the bad guys” in the industry.

Yeah but it also seems like they have the best model right now?

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

#776

Post by NamlchakKhandro » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

rafram wrote: post #255

joe_mamba wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them Because you're probably come from a high trust culture where you've been taught reciprocal trust, responsibility and accountability, but there's people coming from low trust environments where exploiting loopholes and scamming everyone outside their inner circle is the norm, and it's the way they learned to get ahead in l…

I’ve been seeing this “high-trust society” dog whistle a lot lately, and I think it’s one of the funniest of its kind. You truly want me to believe that the United States, a country with a history of slavery and segregation, a country that went through a historical period dominated by people literally called “robber barons,” was a high-trust society before immigrants from less industrialized places came and ruined th…

Your claims are a Marxist dog whistle.

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

#777

Post by throw28273 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #354

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.

This is when I wish Jobs was still in charge of Apple. I never quite liked him, but I like Altman way less. And Jobs would CRUCIFY the whole openAI team for this. It would be beautiful to watch.

"Great artists steal."

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

#778

Post by HumblyTossed » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #124

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…

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 and I wipe any access credentials or authenticator codes that might be on any of my devices. I can't imagine being so brazen that you'd keep the company laptop and then start using an exploit to download confidential information for your new employer.

I work from home and I have a lot of equipment here (because of what I do - think sensor fusion). Everything is labeled with a bright sticky tape that signifies it belongs to my employer. If I'm not using something at the moment, it's safely stowed in a box that is labeled. My SO knows where everything is, so in the event something happens, they know who it belongs to and who to call. In addition, I keep an inventory sheet of everything. I broke it all down easily so that my SO doesn't have to worry. By doing this, it makes it easy on me as well to know what I have, how long I've had it, when it needs to be returned by, etc.

None of that belongs to me, but they trust me with it and I respect that and I take excellent care of all of it. The mindset that these ex-employees have is just mind blowing. I couldn't fathom doing that.

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

#779

Post by MeetingsBrowser » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #756

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VP is a leadership position, and has significant influence over the culture

Pointing out it cuts both ways doesn’t imply that it doesn’t cut one of the ways.

> It’s possible this kind of behavior is endorsed throughout

> It very well could be a culture issue

I agree

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

#780

Post by Henchman21 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC

HumblyTossed wrote: post #778

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 and I wipe any access credentials or authenticator codes that might be on any of my devices. I can't imagine being so brazen that you'd keep the company laptop and then start using an exploit to download confidential information for your new employer. I work from home and I have a lot of equipment here (because of what I…

Decent people don’t rise to the top in this world. Their — and your — ethics won’t allow it.

Which means by definition that the people at the top of the economic pyramid are the very worst of us.