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Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai/ https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai/
- willtemperley 2mo agoThis is a really bad look for a company that has vast quantities of our IP stored on its servers.
- ungreased0675 2mo agoI don’t put my company’s IP on their servers, because I don’t trust them to not steal it.
- willtemperley 2mo agoI 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.
- Cider9986 2mo agoHasn't his lab not released a single open weight model?
- QQ00 2mo agoAmodei tried to regulation capture the AI access and also tried to ban open weights. So I disagree with you.
- glenpierce 2mo agoI’m unconvinced that morality is a simple Boolean. He might have ethical standards that are different that others though.
- willtemperley 2mo agoYes. I'm not sure whether Amodei's motivation for attempting to ban open-weight models was for safety or to strengthen Anthropic's position though.
- dozerly 2mo agoYou have not a single clue what kind of human he is
- overgard 2mo agoIf you're using their services, you're more or less giving them their data. (Dunno if that's your situation, just saying)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- throwaway27448 2mo agoThat's also a bad look for any company who willingly hands its IP over
- fantasizr 2mo agothis time they stole from people who have the resources to fight back
- yoyohello13 2mo agoIt’s really unsurprising. Stealing IP is their whole business model.
- fauchletenerum 2mo ago> According to a report by The New Yorker, Swartz described Altman as a "sociopath" who "can never be trusted" and "would do anything Who is surprised by this development?
- cosmicgadget 2mo agoApple suing someone when they lose ground in a space is never surprising.
- nullbio 2mo ago[flagged]
- cmiles8 2mo agoOpenAI are really starting to look and smell like “the bad guys” in the industry.
- nullbio 2mo agoAnthropic is doing the same thing but at an even larger scale than OpenAI, ironically. OpenAI was just unlucky enough to get caught.
- ralphington 2mo ago[citation needed]
- kzrdude 2mo agoYeah but it also seems like they have the best model right now?
- preisschild 2mo ago"Open"AI, Apple, Anthropic, "Space"X are all bad guys
- overgard 2mo agoI think their moral failures are just a bit more visible at the moment. I don't think the other companies are much better. Maybe they're more competent at not running afoul of the law. If this is the kind of thing that makes people want to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions, I'd suggest going to local models instead of Anthropic, or smaller providers with more stringent ethical guidelines.
- xandrius 2mo agoStarting? Did you just connect to the Internet?
- Andrex 2mo agoYeah, whatever small amount of Koolaid I was excited to drink went out the window when they ditched the charity angle. A broken clock's right twice a day and Musk is right about that.
- joshstrange 2mo agoSome 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 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. > 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. Non-competes and the like are gross but what's described here isn't just "bring your expertise to OpenAI" it's "here is how to steal secrets on your way out" which is even grosser.
- grttw14 2mo ago[flagged]
- bigyabai 2mo agoNothing that Steve Jobs advocated for coincides with OpenAI's business ethos. OpenAI would be just fine. The burden of proof falls on you to defend that theory.
- nba456_ 2mo ago[flagged]
- tiahura 2mo agoCopy of the Complaint. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474095/gov.uscourts.cand.474095.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.47... 9. In the months before he left Apple, Mr. Tan met with OpenAI or its collaborators and discussed meetings with a key Apple supplier. He began emailing himself information about Apple’s suppliers and internal summaries of the consumer electronics industry. And today, when interviewing Apple employees for jobs at OpenAI, Mr. Tan uses Apple’s confidential information to gain access to even more insider knowledge. He has used an Apple internal project codename to ask, “What’s the plan[?]” for an unannounced Apple product. He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information. These directions to bring Apple’s parts to OpenAI job interviews surprised at least one of the candidates, who commented that he “didn’t even know we could take those from the office.” 10. This is part of OpenAI’s strategy to extract Apple’s confidential information. OpenAI has been instructing Apple employees to bring “CAD/design artifacts” and “prototypes” to their interviews and to divulge details about their work such as “subsystem and component selection,” the “tools or methodologies you use for system integration, such as CAD software, simulation tools,” and “Vendor selection and communication/collaboration with vendors.” 11. 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. After his own departure, Mr. Tan improperly retained or obtained an internal Apple managers’ document marked “Need to Know” that describes security procedures for employee departures. Messages left on Apple-issued work devices show that Mr. Tan and his OpenAI colleagues have been sharing this document with new hires before they give notice to Apple of their departures, previewing Apple’s security protocols. Unsurprisingly, Apple’s investigation has found a pattern by employees who depart for OpenAI of taking steps to evade the security processes intended to protect Apple’s confidential information.
- andrewinardeer 2mo agoThis is going to be interesting. Only because both companies have access to billions and infinite lawyers.
- throwatdem12311 2mo agoCan you pay for lawyers with RAM, GPUs or IOUs for tokens?
- grttw14 2mo agoImagine comparing what apple has access to vs a deeply money losing firm
- FridgeSeal 2mo agoThe “nuclear bomb vs coughing baby” meme comes to mind.
- generj 2mo agoMore importantly Apple can effectively bring up the shadow of this lawsuit whenever OpenAi tries to acquire money. They can make legal fillings and calls to Bloomberg to keep the story going as long as they want to and suck some oxygen out of any IPO ramp up.
- benoau 2mo agoI would guess these days Apple probably has more lawyers than engineers.
- avgDev 2mo agoLawyers: rubbing hands together
- chasd00 2mo agoYeah it reminds me of tha Pink Floyd lyric “..we’re so happy we can hardly count!”.
- jediknightluke 2mo ago
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- exabrial 2mo agoThey didn't still the property, that would be illegal. They trained a model on it. That's totally ok.
- nba456_ 2mo agoReminds me of Apple suing Samsung. Why bother with the free market when you can just sue your competitors?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- dofm 2mo agoSome of the Apple/Samsung complaint was horseshit (and was a bit of a distraction because they knew they'd need to settle their suit with Nokia). But it was design copying and IP infringement stuff: duplication of things already in the wild. This is on another level. If any of this is true, it's extraordinary, and I think OpenAI will likely want to settle quickly, thus increasing Apple's AI-related earnings.
- Conscat 2mo agoAccording to Apple, are there any tech companies in the galaxy who haven't stolen their trade secrets?
- mingus88 2mo agoIf you can’t see the difference between a design firm pointing out obvious riffs on their first to market designs… And a company openly instructing poached employees to exfiltrate documents on their way out the door, well…
- cosmicgadget 2mo agoI didn't read the full complaint but the article focuses on bringing Apple IP to interviews. It's not clear that it was intended to steal trade secrets. The Liu guy seemingly did so but he wouldn't be the first person to try to take his own work product out the door for personal reasons. I distrust statements like: > “pattern by employees who depart for OpenAI of taking steps to evade the security processes intended to protect Apple’s confidential information.” This could mean almost anything.
- SpicyLemonZest 2mo agoThey do explain that in more detail deeper in the complaint. They allege that OpenAI has obtained the offboarding checklist for Apple managers, that OpenAI is using it to issue guidance to departing employees on how they can avoid scrutiny, and that employees receiving this guidance have been ignoring Apple security personnel who try to schedule their standard exit processes.
- cosmicgadget 2mo agoThat doesn't sound too heinous. As far as I am aware, employers aren't entitled to exit processes so long as they get their property back. OpenAI possessing an offboarding checklist accessible to any Apple manager doesn't seem like an IP issue. I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this part other than Apple trying to imply OpenAI has something to hide.
- frays 2mo agoIt's ok because this information was just being used to train their models.
- apparent 2mo ago>In its lawsuit Friday, Apple accused Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former Apple executive, of coaching his hires from Apple on how to evade Apple’s security processes for departing employees. The word "coaching" is very malleable, and could refer to perfectly legal conduct, or conduct that is illegal, unethical, or both. How would an OpenAI employee know what Apple's security processes for departing employees are? One would assume he was told by previously-departed Apple employees. Would they have been forbidden to disclose information about the outgoing process? I would think so, given how careful Apple is about these things. > Apple accused another former employee, Chang Liu, of using a former colleague’s Apple-owned laptop to access and download technical documents while working at OpenAI. Mr. Liu told that Apple employee what information about unannounced products she should study before job interviews, Apple said. I would be very hesitant to assist a former colleague who is still at Apple in this way. Apple is well known for using deliberate leaks to smoke out leakers, and it would be easy for them to get a current/loyal employee to go through the interview process at a competitor for the purpose of finding out if the competitor is trying to get Apple employees to act unethically/illegally. EDIT: I see my comment, which I posted on the HN thread for an NYT article, has been merged into the comment section of a different article, and is now being downvoted a bunch. Please understand I did not post this comment here, so if it seems out of place that's why.
- wilsonnb3 2mo ago> How would an OpenAI employee know what Apple's security processes for departing employees are? The openAI employee in question is also a former Apple employee.
- apparent 2mo agoAh, somehow I missed that even though it was included in the quote I copied. Thanks!
- MeetingsBrowser 2mo agoNot just any employee. A 24 year veteran and at the time of departure the VP of design for the iPhone and Apple Watch
- ChrisArchitect 2mo agoSome more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019
- LoganDark 2mo agoThe threads have now been merged, it seems.
- s08148692 2mo agoWell they trained their model by scraping all digitised human knowledge and ignoring IP and CW laws so whats a little bit of corporate espionage in the grand scheme of things
- generj 2mo agoApple kindly wanted to make OpenAI add in some legal liabilities to their IPO filling. Discovery is going to be great fun (for Apple).
- j2kun 2mo agoDiscovery is the entertainment for the rest of us.
- mayneack 2mo agothis will settle before it gets to discovery I bet
- rising-sky 2mo agoYes, exactly. Probably a settlement similar in spirit to Google v Uber RE: Anthony Levandowski stealing self driving IP
- glenpierce 2mo agoDepends on the objective of Apple. It’s hard to imagine they’re after a quick payout. They may wish to keep this in the news cycle as long as possible. I could see them both harming open ai and sending a message to employees thinking of leaving that if they even consider breaking their confidentiality agreements, it will absolutely ruin their careers.
- kkarakk 2mo agodoubt it - in the uber/waymo thing the guy got pardoned by trump after lobbying from thiel/luckey, probably a similar outcome for this guy since altman has trump's ear rn.
- overgard 2mo agoI mean, Trump turns on people in an instant depending on his interests.. he's not a reliable friend. He is, also, very thin-skinned and he (probably?) knows his base is extremely against datacenters. (It's hard to ignore that political reality now -- it's like the nations' most politically unifying thing!) Dario was in the admin's good graces, until very suddenly he wasn't.
- xnx 2mo agoA company that behaves like this in one area, cannot be trusted in any area. Any enterprise that endorses/allows OpenAI products to be used is taking a big risk.
- tangenter 2mo agoMeh. Consider that you had no choice and no say that your data out there, both present and historic as mined, aggregated and analyzed by data collectors, was used as a training set for the LLMs. I think you’re a tad too late with your warning. They’re already thieves and they know it. And they know you can’t and won’t do anything about it.
- xnx 2mo agoPublic/crawlable data is very different from private/internal documents and code that employees might prompt with.
- MeetingsBrowser 2mo agoI’m not one to defend huge companies, but OpenAI is a huge company. It’s possible this kind of behavior is endorsed throughout, or it’s possible it’s limited to this specific group. We know nothing beyond what Apple has alleged.
- mixdup 2mo agoYou think the group tasked with developing whatever hardware device they're trying to build is isolated away from senior leadership and is running rogue?
- hahahaa 2mo agoWhy not? It may be the old plausable denable thing. Like so many examples. Pressure from the top but no instruction to do $badthing.
- 2mo ago
- orliesaurus 2mo agoMr Tan is suddenly going to be in a LOT of trouble
- iwontberude 2mo agoWhich equals fame and intrigue in the Trump era, big congratulations to Mr. Tan on his new found wealth
- draw_down 2mo ago[dead]
- LoganDark 2mo agoWeirdly, this seems like they're trying to train a model to work like Apple? They seem really interested in processes and how stuff is done, rather than only the finished artifacts.
- phainopepla2 2mo agoThat doesn't seem that weird to me. Good processes lead to good artifacts.
- LoganDark 2mo agoApple just seems like a weird target for that kind of stuff, is all.
- thewebguyd 2mo agoGiven that allegedly hardware information was involved I’d lean more toward this is for developing either custom silicon based on Apple’s designs or OpenAI wants to make consumer hardware. Aren’t they making something with Jony Ive too?
- Cyberdog 2mo agoI assumed consumer hardware too though I can't imagine what OpenAI hardware would look like. Another take on the "smart speaker" that has hit the consumer market with a resounding "meh?"
- Andrex 2mo agoThere's rumors they've been planning a phone. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/29/everything-we-know-about-openai-iphone-rival/ https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/29/everything-we-know-abou...
- tudelo 2mo agoIt would make sense. Massive distribution vector
- Marciplan 2mo agoprobably the real reason why Apple opted Gemini over ChatGPT
- simondotau 2mo agoChanging suppliers is potentially the reason why Apple’s AI strategy was so delayed.
- solfox 2mo agoPretty foolish of them to play so unethically only to lose such a big account and now gain an open-and-shut lawsuit that will seriously damage their ability to compete in hardware for a very long time.
- cosmicgadget 2mo agoMaybe they believed Apple would roll their own AI and not have to license Google's.
- Andrex 2mo agoThere's also the possibility it was a coincidence, and the stakeholders in the Gemini decision are breathing a heavy sigh of relief.
- etchalon 2mo agoBased on the timelines at play here, I'd wager this.
- spongebobstoes 2mo agoI heard oai turned apple down, not the other way around
- andy_ppp 2mo agoCan't wait for the inevitable bailout and US tax dollars to pay for this!
- Cyberdog 2mo agoBailout of OpenAI? Doubt it, unless Trump and Musk have some sort of falling out (again).
- andy_ppp 2mo agoHas nobody heard about this theory yet? https://youtu.be/RqDAMeqvUgo https://youtu.be/RqDAMeqvUgo
- Cyberdog 2mo agoThat video's over an hour long. Care to sum it up for us?
- raziel2701 2mo agoIdea is that Trump would bailout AI companies and call it "job protection" or "America growth" or "national security" because they know the word 'bailout' is politically bad. Other ideas discussed are that AI companies are going through a chain of larger and larger subsidies: VC --> Big Tech --> Governments. And that these companies haven't been able to make money off of AI so they're priming things for a bailout that's not a bailout wink wink. And that they foresee a situation where Trump will accept bribes in order to heavily regulate some AI companies but not others. Picking winners and losers.
- jgalt212 2mo agoHence the rise of the DSA.
- Robdel12 2mo agoOpenAI 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.
- overfeed 2mo agoOpenAI also has infinite money, and the graph for money/lawyering gets clamped well below what OpenAI can afford. It's going to end most other corporate courtroom tangles: with an undisclosed settlement and a well-publicized partnership.
- transdev12 2mo agoOpenAI really doesn’t have infinite money. They have a lot of money, sure, but it is being burned like crazy, we know this. It is widely known that they are deeply unprofitable. Compare that with Apple, a company that throws off billions of cash every quarter. This isn’t a legit comparison.
- harry8 2mo agoLegal fees are insignificant to open ai. Either they get profitable and the money does not run out or they don't, eventually can't raise more and close leaving these proceedings irrelevant. At no point is money as a resource being spent on this legal case any kind of meaningful constraint. Equally true for both open ai and apple. You? You're toast if you need legal justice with either co on the other side. The law exists so that the strongest might not always get their way. It was a good ideal, maybe we should bring it back.
- kkarakk 2mo agoyep the most that will happen is apple/openai co-branded devices or some sort of "corporate synergy" now that everyone knows apple tech is in the upcoming openai stuff. there's no value in it for apple to go nuclear like there was for google to push a competitor out of the market w/ uber vs waymo
- browski 2mo agoAltman showing how desperate he is to get into hardware. He knows local models that supplement models in chip are the end of OIA
- gabriel-uribe 2mo agoThis season of Silicon Valley is getting spicy
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- NetOpWibby 2mo agoSuper stupid actions by these ex-employees LMAO These people think OpenAI can/will protect them?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- dreamoftheiris 2mo agoWOW so these companies really are stealing enterprise data to make competing products! Fucking slimy! How can anyone trust them now?
- InsideOutSanta 2mo agoYeah, I find the majority of comments here interesting. Sure, it should be common sense not to email internal documents to yourself when you leave, or keep a company laptop and access internal networks after you no longer work at a place. That's just dumb and unethical and illegal. But also, I can't find it in myself to really care about this. Trillion-dollar company takes ideas from other trillion-dollar company. Apple has done this to much smaller companies countless times. But OpenAI-on-Apple violence is so far removed from a crime that actually harms normal people that I'm not sure why I should give a shit.
- stahhhpit 2mo agoStop trying to cram your "P" into "AI".
- oogabooga13 2mo agoProbably among many reasons for the switch to Gemini for their band aid AI until they get theirs were they want/need.
- sashank_1509 2mo agoHot take, but Apple has done the same and worse to many other companies when they could. Of course Apple can sue and they will probably settle some amount with OpenAI, but acting like this is not commonplace in today’s business environment, and OpenAI is uniquely worse at stealing corporate secrets is laughable. Especially considering Apple’s famous history!
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> Apple has done the same and worse to many other companies when they could The closest involved Apple selling Xerox pre-IPO shares [1]. And there are zero allegations any PARC employees who moved to Apple with confidential information the this has gone down. > acting like this is not commonplace in today’s business environment It's not. It's why it gets litigated and criminally charged. I won't disagree that there is a section of Americans who think it's commonplace. But that's because they're either personally doing the crimes or surrounded by criminals. [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-21/larry-tesler-dead-steve-jobs-personal-computer https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-21/larry-tesl...
- sashank_1509 2mo agoHmmm it does seem like this seems much worse than what I thought of Apple doing (like stealing the idea for a mouse and GUI from Xerox), the best I could find is Qualcomm claiming Apple stole its modem code and gave it to Intel. That was settled before trial. This however does actually seem far worse, reminds me more of Waymo vs Uber, people can go to jail.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoApple’s “stealing” has been dramatized because Jobs gave it a good line. It’s really not comparable to what these guys are doing.
- losthubble 2mo agoDidn't apple get banned from selling apple watch because they pretended to want to buy IP and basically just poached and gutted the company instead?
- uhfraid 2mo agoI forgot they were still working on a device, any guesses what it is? I’m guessing a wrist wearable
- benoau 2mo agoI’d guess phone, anything else is too compute-constrained and just an accessory for them, plus has to pay 30% of subscriptions and can be disadvantaged strategically.
- cosmicgadget 2mo agoMy money is on drone with missile pods.
- kalleboo 2mo agoAn egg
- yesfinally 2mo agoFried egg fried egg gotta get down on fried egg Aybody's lookin forward To tha Weakened
- lobsterthief 2mo ago… in these trying times?
- orangepanda 2mo agoThe one from Black Mirror?
- setnone 2mo agothe only ai device that makes any sense is a robot
- dash2 2mo agoMaybe handcuffs, hee hee
- thraway3837 2mo ago
- naturalmovement 2mo agoI will never grow tired of highly paid so-called geniuses so deluded by their own hubris they think no one will not only not notice them moving GBs of data onto a USB on their last day of work, but assume they also don't have logs of everything you accessed and everything you took. Little no-name companies have this capability with off the shelf software. Large companies like Apple have entire departments of staff whose job it is to monitor data theft. It's bonkers and I love every single story as if it's never been told before.
- system2 2mo agoSam Altman is doing Sam Altman stuff.
- firesteelrain 2mo ago[flagged]
- cocacola1 2mo agoThat’s a pretty grotesque insinuation.
- firesteelrain 2mo agoWhy? It’s not unheard of to perform corporate espionage
- nickthegreek 2mo agoit’s racism.
- firesteelrain 2mo agoEver heard of the China Initiative? It’s real.
- teravor 2mo agoaren't most of their suppliers Chinese? don't need to spy to get hardware trade secrets when you get BCC'ed on everything.
- t0mpr1c3 2mo agoToo bad I cannot downvote your blatant racism. Take it to Gab social or X.
- firesteelrain 2mo agoThat’s a dismissive jab for telling people where they belong which is against HN guidelines. “When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.”
- html5cat 2mo agoInteresting how Tang Yew Tan worked at Apple for 25 years (!!) and then threw it all out for this.
- The_Blade 2mo agowho knows, maybe he had giant gambling debts or other addiction(s) or bad real estate investments and/or lost half of it all to an ex-wife first. things that Jony might be readily aware of. assuming there is more than a kernel of truth to this - and i can't imagine not, the OpenAI comms guy who responded already scrubbed his X account - it doesn't surprise me that Tan was a criminal, it's that he was such a bad criminal
- andersonpico 2mo ago> the OpenAI comms guy who responded already scrubbed his X account who responded to what?
- hug 2mo agohttps://x.com/drewpusateri/status/2075708238650089981 https://x.com/drewpusateri/status/2075708238650089981 and https://x.com/drewpusateri https://x.com/drewpusateri
- telotortium 2mo agoWhat did he scrub? Looks like an account with posts to me
- romanovcode 2mo agoIsn't scrubbing any of the data on a public platform that everyone sees AFTER you are being sued is not the smartest decision?
- saalweachter 2mo agoEh, not a lawyer, but my experience with internet PR problems is that the Internet is pretty lazy with a short attention span. Take something down and most of the Internet is too lazy to dig up an archive and they wander off to find something else to score internet points off of.
- yumraj 2mo agoThis may be the reason why OpenAI reportedly delayed its IPO. They might have had an inkling that this was coming.
- simonswords82 2mo agoI read that Apple warned them about a potential litigation in February so you could be correct.
- nba456_ 2mo agoLike when Apple sued Samsung. Why bother with the free market when you can just sue your competitors?
- y1n0 2mo agoWhat a dumb take. Apple is the most wildly successful company in the market. You think whatever pittance they get from this will outweigh the cost of stolen ip?
- JumpinJack_Cash 2mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- etchalon 2mo ago... what the hell are you talking about?
- etchalon 2mo agoWhat a neat culture OpenAI has.
- nullbio 2mo agoThis is a drop in the ocean compared to what Anthropic does behind closed doors.
- azinman2 2mo agoBased on what?
- nullbio 2mo agoThey do all of this, plus far worse. Including but not limited to flooding the internet with guerrilla marketing and sentiment-shifting bots across all social media platforms. This is the sort of company they are, and it's just the tip of the iceberg: https://clawd.rip https://clawd.rip
- CookieCrisp 2mo agoI tend to see far more obvious bots attacking Claude than any other - which makes sense, they're winning.
- mcintyre1994 2mo agoSame, the main network I see bots on is X and there’s a really obvious bot attack on them there since the fight with the DoD.
- nullbio 2mo agoReddit and X are flooded with them.
- mcintyre1994 2mo ago
- ed_mercer 2mo ago> At Apple, our teams are constantly developing breakthrough technologies I sure hope they weren't referring to Siri here
- Cider9986 2mo agoAlthough I haven't tried the new Siri.
- SirHackalot 2mo agoGet ‘em Apple. Begin the IP wars have…
- wnevets 2mo agoIf you sleep with dogs you're gonna get fleas. These AI companies have made billions by stealing other peoples content, what makes you think they would be above stealing from Apple?
- rukuu001 2mo agoCasually dragging new employees into the deepest shit, it’s breathtaking. Also the naïveté of going along with it?? > He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information
- PeterHolzwarth 2mo agoQuick reminder that Apple was part of the silicon valley crew that partook of illegal non-poaching arrangements with other SV companies, helping to stifle salaries and more. But, that's a bit of a tangent. On the other hand, Apple is accused of (and a jury ruled against them on the issue) hiring from Masimo to steal trade secret. Appeals are pending, of course, but it's a reminder that Apple is not lily white on this topic.
- akamaka 2mo agoThe jury ruled against Apple only on the issue of patents, and the claims of trade secret theft were dismissed. There doesn’t seem to be evidence that the Masimo employees who went to work for Apple brought any confidential information along with them.
- bel8 2mo agoYeah I cannot feel any sympathy for either companies here. They all do this exact thing, including Apple. OpenAI was just the last one to get caught. And if OpenAI uses this hardware information to bring less locked hardware to the masses, wishful thinking I know, then more power to them. If AI keeps improving, it is very important to make sure everyone gets at least a smidge of a chance of equal access to AI otherwise the income disparity will grow even more. And Apple is the last company in the world to think of the masses. They sell $1000 aluminium monitor stands: https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-monitor-stand-price-reaction-misses-point-2019-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-monitor-stand-price-re...
- rustystump 2mo agoThis is silly. Iirc there is a big dif between poaching people for ip and telling people to lie keep working download and physically steal ip. Open ai is not a hero. Open ai is the kind of intellectual property theft and i hope the entire thing crashes and burns. There are plenty of other companies out there less disgusting that can work on foundation models
- aleksandrm 2mo agoI'm curious, who is actually making the calls and who is actually doing the scouting for these people. If this is coordinated, the chain must long, so let's see it!
- opengrass 2mo ago> Chang Liu What did he steal, Garageband?
- paxys 2mo agoReminder 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.
- akamaka 2mo agoThe $634 million judgement you’re referring to was only for Masimo’s patents, and the other claims they made about trade secret theft were dismissed.
- bel8 2mo ago> only for Masimo’s patents. Sorry but there's no such thing as "only patents", these are often what companies live and die for. The handwaving of Apple wrongdoings have no limits.
- akamaka 2mo agoAll of three of these companies are huge $10+ billion corporations who are capable of doing good and bad simultaneously. If you’re happy painting them as black or white, that your choice, but some people are interested in the specific facts of each case. All I did was quote a fact without any additional comments, and you are the one being dismissive and handwaving it away.
- bel8 2mo agoYou're the one downplaying "breaking patents", not me.
- namocat 2mo agoI now wonder whether Tang Tan was involved in the Masimo incident while at Apple. Maybe he brought that part of the Apple culture to OpenAI.
- jtfrench 2mo agoUntil 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.
- ag709 2mo agounrelated, but I love the writing style of this comment
- Tarq0n 2mo agoIgnoring 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.
- b3kart 2mo agoI think significantly fewer people would have an issue with this if the profit was socialized. The fact that a company took all of humanity’s data and is profiting from _is_ the issue.
- impulser_ 2mo agoThis is basically the end of OpenAI hardware. This is by far worst than the Waymo vs. Uber lawsuit which killed the Uber self driving project. Also if you are a business using OpenAI models, I would highly suggest you do not because they are most likely looking at your code and IP.
- glenpierce 2mo agoGood point. If these are the ethical standards they go by, who’s to say they’re abiding by any standards to keep my data private.
- nullbio 2mo agoObviously they are looking at your IP and code. Anthropic trains on your data regardless of you opting out, I know that one for certain. There's no coincidence they "keep your data temporarily despite opting out" - because they wash it in legal loopholes. There is no opt out. These companies WILL steal your business. Only a matter of time before they are sued as well.
- Chu4eeno 2mo agoWeren't they required by a court to keep everything, despite the privacy policy etc.? Or am I mixing up my companies in constant law battles.
- SpicyLemonZest 2mo agoThey were required to keep all non-European user logs for a temporary period between April and September 2025, because the media companies suing them think these logs may be the only evidence in existence that could prove or disprove their alleged misconduct.
- azinman2 2mo ago> Anthropic trains on your data regardless of you opting out, I know that one for certain. How do you know that?
- zygo 2mo agoNothing is too low for Sam. I expect any kind of shady shit from that company
- maz1b 2mo agoWow. Makes me see OpenAI in an entirely different light.
- Voultapher 2mo agoMy gut instinct is to call you a mooncalf, given the lengthy documented history of OpenAI "re-appropriating" things and wanting to profit from it. So here is my honest question, what light did you see them in before and what did you base that on?
- nyanmatt 2mo agoMaybe lead with the question instead of the feigned insult?
- nicce 2mo ago> Wow. Makes me see OpenAI in an entirely different light. Based on what has been already going on there, not even surprised anymore.
- wwind123 2mo agoIn every company I've worked at (all with >1000 employees), there is always some text in the offer or onboarding documents clearly stating that you should not bring any previous employer's trade secret or intellectual property to this company. I wonder whether Open AI's offer letter or onboarding document also says such a thing.
- luciana1u 2mo ago[flagged]
- jhatemyjob 2mo agoThis kind of stuff happens all the time. The employees in question are just incredibly bad at covering their tracks, normally they'd get fired and that would be it. It is fishy that OpenAI's leadership didn't have the watchdogd in place to catch it. And there's this huge public lawsuit about it now. Plus there's the Elon lawsuit. Makes me think somebody wants OpenAI to go down. Almost like a sacrificial scapegoat, in order to achieve psychosocial unity in the programming community, or something like that.
- drob518 2mo agoSeems to me that OpenAI has a culture of questionable ethics that includes this incident but goes way beyond it. This seems very “on brand” for them.
- mandeepj 2mo agoWhy are most lawsuits filed on Friday? To avoid the excessive news cycle? But in this case, Apple might want that.
- seydor 2mo agoNew revenue streams
- narrator 2mo agoJust remembering randomly here, xAI also sued an employee who went to OpenAI for trade secret theft: https://winbuzzer.com/2025/09/01/xai-sues-former-engineer-alleging-theft-of-grok-trade-secrets-for-openai-xcxwbn/ https://winbuzzer.com/2025/09/01/xai-sues-former-engineer-al...
- throwa356262 2mo agoxAI argues the stolen data contains “cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT”. The company claims this information could provide OpenAI with a “potential overwhelming edge in the race to dominate the AI landscape”. This has to be a joke. The also-ran accusing the market leader. Specially when some of what xAI has achieved was stolen from Google.
- steve1977 2mo agoIt's not really surprising that a company that is essentially built on stolen IP will steal more IP when there's an opportunity .
- avadodin 2mo agoIt would not be bard hard to believe if you told me that they stole Siri and then they put it back on the shelf.
- Lio 2mo agoOpenAI is a company built on copyright violation. That means it’s in the corporate DNA to treat laws as things for little people. Apple have deep enough pockets that they can actually sue OpenAI but I bet OpenAI are surprised they got caught. Now ask yourself, would the Codex agents on your machine ever over step legal boundaries? Would OpenAI ever make use of data you, voluntarily, send to their servers? If they did could your company afford to sue OpenAI and would it still be too late to save the business?
- thewhitetulip 2mo agoDon't matter to people who look at codex as a way to replace employees
- baxtr 2mo agoMaybe. But those people might care about their IP being stolen by Codex.
- throw1234567891 2mo agoIf they were, they would not be shipping code to those platforms already.
- sunnybeetroot 2mo agoAnd Apple is a company built on anti trust violations[1]. Every company that sees it profitable to break the law and pay a fine seems to do it. There are no “good guys”. [1] https://www.theverge.com/apple/659296/apple-failed-compliance-court-ruling-breakdown https://www.theverge.com/apple/659296/apple-failed-complianc...
- mhdi_kr99 2mo agosteam/valve are good guys
- 2mo ago
- zftnb666 2mo agoApple protecting trade secrets is like a bank protecting vaults — except the vault is made of glass and the code was probably written by OpenAI's LLM anyway.
- himata4113 2mo agoIs this the simple case of being used to stealing so much (most ai companies pretty much stole all of data available on the internet with little consequence) that they also felt comfortable stealing data from companies?
- runako 2mo agoThis reads like there are enough alleged serious federal felonies that DOJ needs to get involved immediately. People do this kind of stuff because people rarely go to jail for white-collar crime.
- avodonosov 2mo agoIf instead of downloading the files they took the info out in the form of neural network trained on the files and able to reproduce the information, that would be just fair use, 100 pound.
- m3kw9 2mo agoIs the same clean room technique used for code bases.
- avodonosov 2mo agoThe fair use concept applies to any copyrighted material, I suppose. BTW, maybe OpenAI can build on this their defence line. If they prove in court that the materials they got from Apple have never been used for design of products, and OpenAI only collected some linguistic statistics from the docs (as we know, training LLM is concepfually no different from calculating word frequencies), which does not violate copyrights. As for possible similafities in pfoducts to the Apple design, that's just a coincedence, developers can come to equal solutions when solving equal problenms. Equipped with modern AI assistants they quickly re-discover approaches others have discovered.
- m3kw9 2mo agothis would be some crazy landmark ruling opening the door to IP clean rooming of every IP, which means companies will no longer file IPs and keep it secret to delaying the inevitable
- anematode 2mo agoExactly!
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- cromka 2mo agoSo I guess we can forget about next AI IPOs for a while, can't we? It's Crazy that Elon may end up winning this one, too.
- agigao 2mo agoSam, thinking that he could get away with everything. The master strategist of the west.
- Luker88 2mo agoAnd everyone will keep using them, and nothing will happen, because the markets are completely irrational, sociopathic and nobody was actually in charge, regulations are bad etc... What is the realistic expectation where megacorporations are above a good chunk of the law, the citizens can't hopefully pass any legislation and pardons are just a matter of a donation?
- alpineman 2mo agoBad look for Jonny Ive
- tancop 2mo ago[dead]
- barrkel 2mo agoThere comes a point in a startup's life where more controls are needed. Red tape. The stuff that slows down the big boys. Problem is, the red tape is scar tissue from previous informal process failures.
- laravinson26 2mo ago[dead]
- kneel25 2mo agoThe employees doing the stealing are serious offenders here and I hope they lose all the job security they just had. There’s no way they wouldn’t know they’d be fired if Apple found out what they were doing, but the money was too irresistible to them and they thought they’d get away with it.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- nvarsj 2mo agoThe irony to me is Apple did the exact same thing to Motorola back in the day, which I saw firsthand as a Mot eng. Poached employees and IP. I doubt the iPhone would have happened otherwise. Jobs was absolutely ruthless and would do anything for his goals.
- stefan_ 2mo agoOf course, this is essentially the basis of capitalism. Corporations are just people, folks, spread the knowledge and we all get richer. The best corporations I worked at had people dedicated to reverse engineering competitor products and were deeply steeped in the market, the worst were those where product just cared about making their bosses happy.
- awakeasleep 2mo agowhat do you mean by "exact same thing" This isn't about "poaching" employees (in our society people can work where they choose, they are not property of a feudal lord) and using their knowledge. This is about ex-employees accessing Apple's internal fileshares. It's about instructing employees who were about to leave to take everything they could with them, and giving them training on how to evade Apple's offboarding security process.
- 2mo ago
- liendolucas 2mo agoI don't really get it. High profile people working for Apple leave for OpenAI, obviously for money. Is it worth it though? You already have a good job, enough money and work for an iconic company. I mean people in these positions taking these decisions, wouldn't have actually benefited way much more if staying at Apple and actually disclosed OpenAI attempts to steal IP and technology?
- AbstractH24 2mo agoHow far are we from OpenAI being “too big to fail”? Eventually this bubble will burst. Question is what’ll do it. (I’ll say I don’t use OpenAI after the DoD stuff, so don’t misconstrue this as approval.)
- quietthrow 2mo agoAt the end of the day leadership matters in corporate settings (or for a country for that matter). The person at the helm sets the tone for the culture - what’s acceptable what’s not etc. how to go about achieving a goal. Objectively speaking and leaving out judgement of good or bad- Sam, Trump etc all are extremely good at the skill they bring. And when they are put in a position of power they do end up revealing who they are. Thats the thing about power - once you have it will reveal who you are and you have no control over that And Thats the deal. Sam prolly has no idea about it but given who he is he only has a bunch of narcissistic megalomaniacs surrounding him and so on and so forth with dilution as levels progress
- greenoracle9 2mo agoI expected this to be mostly about Apple being angry that OpenAI hired its hardware people, but the complaint sounds more specific and obviously it is still only Apple’s side for now.
- rambojohnson 2mo agojust desserts. let them fight each other. every major monopolistic corporation in this country was founded on theft anyway. lets not clutch pearls here guys...
- sidcool 2mo agoApple was smart to move to Gemini before suing OpenAI. But I feel nothing's gonna come out of it.
- verdverm 2mo agohttps://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-executive-sentenced-18-months-jail-trade-secret-theft-google https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-executive-s... Prior art suggests jail time and product failure
- jakeinspace 2mo agoApple has all the money in the world to take this to court, I don't see why they'd accept a settlement. The discovery process alone could honestly destroy OpenAI by making investors and employees nervous enough to look elsewhere. Would be especially interesting if this crosses into criminal territory, especially if there's solid proof of upper management or executives being aware.
- bigyabai 2mo ago> I don't see why they'd accept a settlement. glances at Kushner's $1 billion OpenAI investment through Thrive Capital Are you sure they won't settle? Apple settled their case with NSO Group, even though they were (and still are) hacking iPhone handsets. Seems to me like Apple is happy to settle cases that interfere with their political ambitions whenever America's government asks them to stand down. If Apple's protectionist treatment is predicated on non-interference with other protected companies like OpenAI, maybe they will be motivated to settle out of court.
- causal 2mo agoIf OpenAI is this shady culturally then all kinds of dark secrets could come out. They just released 5.6 to great fanfare with benchmarks showing even their weakest model (Luna) supposedly smoking Fable. Having used it a couple hours I'm certain this is a lie, and I'm now curious what else is.
- dzonga 2mo agothis is just a repeat of the whole Uber case in regards to self driving vs Waymo. the people responsible will be sent to jail - and if they can pay trump for pardons they will get out - but if not they're looking at 10 years at the FEDs.
- overgard 2mo agoI'd really love to see OpenAI use ChatGPT to mount their defense. Eat your own dog food! It should be PhD level right?
- _RPM 2mo agoThe culture of cheating is normalized in Asian culture.
- halamadrid 2mo agoI fail to understand the need to do this, isn't it obvious from the history that Apple will find out and will go after this? Why take this risk? I feel its better to start from scratch & redo things so that you get two things 1. a chance to correct problems you couldn't before because things evolved too much 2. don't break rules or agreements you have signed before The first one is the key part - I think redoing something the second time almost always ends up in a better result. If you are paid to do it with enough resources and team then all the more easier.
- pwthornton 2mo agoDid you really expect better from a Scam Altman company? 0 morals or ethics.
- zkid18 2mo agoWow, American AI labs are now quite close in ethical competition to their Chinese counterparts heh. It seems we're truly in a power war rn.
- warumdarum 2mo agoOne way a bubble can pop is from the healthy endavours to devour the bubble inhabitants whose funds run out in a legal feeding frenzy?
- Someone 2mo ago> 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 How come Apple didn’t remotely wipe that laptop or at least black it from accessing their network? Whether they couldn’t or didn’t, that doesn’t show well for their IT department.