Live data from Hacker News

Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

9to5mac.com

71–80 of 205 posts

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#71
post #17

> Additionally, Apple learned about Liu’s use of the schematic because he used it on a Mac mini which later synced via iCloud to the MacBook he took from Apple. Apple now also wants access to that Mac mini. I'm very curious about the privacy implications of this. I know that anything I do and store on my company's laptop can be tracked, but I hadn't considered that if I forgot to sign out of my personal Gmail on it t…

> I forgot to sign out of my personal Gmail Never, ever, ever sign into personal mail/messaging on work machines. Even the appearance of having done so just sets up for bad things. This was kinda iffy 20 years ago, now its crazy to do. We all have phones now, there's no good reason to do this.

> Never, ever, ever sign into personal mail/messaging on work machines

apple explicitly encourages their employees to do exactly this - it's called "carry"ing your work device.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#72
post #16

> Apple alleges that Liu ran a simulation in March using the circuit schematic file in LTspice, an electrical engineering tool. In messages from around that time, Liu said his AI “agent” learned to run LTspice and review the results. "I didn't steal it, I fed it to an agent who then fed it back to me". > Apple argues that when trade secret information is fed into an AI agent or model that learns from it, that learnin…

I'm not arguing for either side, but here's a fun thought experiment I've been thinking about a lot lately. If I learned things at one company, took my experience and memory to another company, and applied what I had learned there, am I technically stealing that company's secrets? What if I trained a team of agents to think and code like me at work, then exported those agentic skills and took them with me to another…

There doesn't have to be any meaningful analogy here. Laws don't have to treat humans and machines equally. Laws are for people and allow things that are less than ideal, but necessary for people to function.

Humans can't leave their old brains at their previous employer, can't delete their experience learned on proprietary data. It wouldn't make sense for the law to fight this.

But the law can control what can be done with information stored outside of your brain.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#73
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's because Pepsi isn't trying to be Coke, they're trying to be better than Coke. So having the recipe is kind of moot. Even if they were to take the recipe and publish it for all to see, you would still need all of the other machinery that is Coca-Cola to make Coca-Cola. And then you have issues of quality. Coca-Cola has certain standards, it's not a guarantee that everyone else will have those same standards.…

Is this an AI response? coca-cola was replicated by one guy and confirmed in blind taste test by several other people, no magical machinery needed to make it once you know the ingredients. What about quality? That has nothing to do with it. Of course they're trying to be the better coke, that's why they tried making coke with the same color with more sugar and made the flavors stronger.

The “machinery” being the marketing, distribution, and general scale, not the physical vats used to mix it.

Even if you could replicate the exact flavor, you’d still need to do it at scale and get it into stores and convince people to buy it.

As to “just make it yourself”, everyone can make a sandwich, Jersey Mike’s and several other sandwich shops exist successfully.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#74
post #16

> Apple alleges that Liu ran a simulation in March using the circuit schematic file in LTspice, an electrical engineering tool. In messages from around that time, Liu said his AI “agent” learned to run LTspice and review the results. "I didn't steal it, I fed it to an agent who then fed it back to me". > Apple argues that when trade secret information is fed into an AI agent or model that learns from it, that learnin…

I'm not arguing for either side, but here's a fun thought experiment I've been thinking about a lot lately. If I learned things at one company, took my experience and memory to another company, and applied what I had learned there, am I technically stealing that company's secrets? What if I trained a team of agents to think and code like me at work, then exported those agentic skills and took them with me to another…

> If I learned things at one company, took my experience and memory to another company, and applied what I had learned there, am I technically stealing that company's secrets?

Human brains are in many ways privileged agents in a legal and copyright system, because it exists to serve the needs of humans.

Artifacts produced by human brains are not.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#75
post #9
post #4

Happened at a (large) company I worked for in the past. A devops guy stole the DB ahead of going to work with a rival, he was caught and the rival of course wanted nothing to do with it. I'm not sure of his fate but it couldn't have been much fun.

> the rival of course wanted nothing to do with it The key difference here seems to be that OpenAI very much wants something to do with it.

That might be the most embarrassing implication for OpenAI out of the whole affair: That OpenAI, supposedly one of the vanguards in AI, saw a need to appropriate intellectual property of Apple, supposedly a complete laggard in that field.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#77
post #16

> Apple alleges that Liu ran a simulation in March using the circuit schematic file in LTspice, an electrical engineering tool. In messages from around that time, Liu said his AI “agent” learned to run LTspice and review the results. "I didn't steal it, I fed it to an agent who then fed it back to me". > Apple argues that when trade secret information is fed into an AI agent or model that learns from it, that learnin…

Leopard ate my face.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#78
post #16

> Apple alleges that Liu ran a simulation in March using the circuit schematic file in LTspice, an electrical engineering tool. In messages from around that time, Liu said his AI “agent” learned to run LTspice and review the results. "I didn't steal it, I fed it to an agent who then fed it back to me". > Apple argues that when trade secret information is fed into an AI agent or model that learns from it, that learnin…

I'm not arguing for either side, but here's a fun thought experiment I've been thinking about a lot lately. If I learned things at one company, took my experience and memory to another company, and applied what I had learned there, am I technically stealing that company's secrets? What if I trained a team of agents to think and code like me at work, then exported those agentic skills and took them with me to another…

Your training of a team of agents is a product you developed while working for that company and would be owned by them. You could in theory train a new team of agents after leaving the company, but it could not be trained on anything that isn't in your brain. If you gave it anything, like the old company's live metrics, then you'd be stealing trade secrets. The key difference from you personally learning those skills is that an agent trained on company data turns personal knowledge into a portable, structured artifact, which crosses from "your skill" into something that looks a lot more like company property.

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#79
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is essentially arguing that once an LLM system is tainted with IP that the whole system is tainted...

I wonder how they trained siri

I thought Siri was just Google Gemini

Re: Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit

#80
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coca-Cola is the only company that can legally import and process raw coca leaves into a flavoring agent. It’s literally impossible to duplicate their exact recipe.

where did you find that? (super interesting)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Company#Coca_extraction
Post reply on HN