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Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters
- DivingForGold 2mo agoNag screen, as usual
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- scrlk 2mo agohttps://archive.ph/3J3iw https://archive.ph/3J3iw
- josefritzishere 2mo agoWait until it comes out that OpenAI stole trade data through their deal with Atlassian. Seems inevitable. The company is fundamentally criminal in nature.
- hmmm3 2mo agohttps://archive.ph/zoUde https://archive.ph/zoUde
- JKCalhoun 2mo agoHow can I say this…? Some companies come across like a neon sign flashing "EVIL!". It's been nothing but warning signs from this company for at least a year now. I'm so happy to have nothing to do with them (having deleted my account a year or so ago). Their marketing dept is going to have to really dig to get them out of this hole they've made for themselves. The idea that I would trust any device they might roll out that is as personal as a personal AI assistant… It's no better than Meta and their creepy glasses. Yeah, no thanks. EDIT: I don't mind the downvotes—it means I touched a nerve—whether I am on the right or wrong side of the issue is not as interesting. Apple, for its flaws, has not lost my trust with regard to my personal data—Meta and others are likely to never gain that back. OpenAI continues to do things to signal that they will not have that trust with me as well.
- gsibble 2mo agoAgreed. Very wary of OpenAI these days.
- khalic 2mo ago… so… you’re talking about OpenAI or Apple?
- JKCalhoun 2mo agoHa ha. Worked at Apple for over two decades—would not have stayed at a company I thought was evil for that long. A bully at times? I wouldn't argue with that.
- yomismoaqui 2mo agoA quick search: APP STORE, COMPETITION, AND MARKET CONTROL - U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit Accuses Apple of monopolizing smartphone markets and anticompetitive behavior. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets - EU Commission DMA breach The European Commission found Apple in breach of the Digital Markets Act regarding steering rules. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-finds-apple-and-meta-breach-digital-markets-act - Epic Games injunction sanctions Court rules Apple defied App Store order regarding external payment links. https://apnews.com/article/69b16572d2b2c990f6b69d4bbad9b57b - EU €1.8B App Store fine Fined for abusive music-streaming rules and preventing cheaper alternative information. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161 IPHONE PERFORMANCE AND "BATTERYGATE" - Apple Will Finally Pay for Throttling iPhones (WIRED) Apple settled the throttling lawsuit for up to $500 million (without admitting guilt). https://www.wired.com/story/apple-batterygate-settlement-payments-finally-coming/ RIGHT TO REPAIR AND PARTS PAIRING - The End of Parts Pairing? Almost (iFixit) On how software component linking forces warnings and loses functionality. https://www.ifixit.com/News/100266/the-end-of-parts-pairing-almost - Self-Repair Programme Critique (Right to Repair Europe) Critiques serialization, remote authorization, and part restrictions. https://repair.eu/news/apples-self-repair-programme-is-not-the-right-to-repair-we-need/ - France is Fighting to Save Your iPhone from an Early Death (WIRED) Regarding France's probe into planned obsolescence and parts pairing. https://www.wired.com/story/right-to-repair-apple-france/ PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE - Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit (Reuters) Lawsuit alleging accidental Siri recordings and sharing with third parties. https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-siri-privacy-lawsuit-2025-01-02/ - Apple's CSAM On-Device Scanning Critiques (EFF) The Electronic Frontier Foundation's critique of Apple's plan to scan photos on-device (later dropped). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-different-about-encryption-opens-backdoor-your-private-life LABOR CONDITIONS IN SUPPLY CHAINS - Apple Reveals Supply Chain, Details Conditions (Reuters) Early reporting on audit findings of child labor and work violations. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uk/apple-reveals-supply-chain-details-conditions-idUSTRE80C1KV/ - Rights Group Says Apple Suppliers in China Broke Labor Laws (Reuters) Reports of excessive overtime and labor violations in Chinese factories. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/rights-group-says-apple-suppliers-in-china-breaking-labour-laws-idUSBRE85R0EF/ TAX PRACTICES - State aid: Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth up to €13 billion (European Commission) The EC ruling that Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple, later upheld. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_16_2923
- deepwoods 2mo agoFT frames this as some aggressive escalation tactic, but document retention letters are extremely standard practice. At this point they're basically a formality, as any former Apple employee at OpenAI really ought to know by now that they could get dragged into this. Hold letters can be aggressive if you send them before you've even filed a complaint, but if anything, Apple is late to the party with these.
- elicash 2mo agoI'm not a lawyer, but I would also guess they need to "flip" these folks against OpenAI and get them to cooperate in the lawsuit against the actual folks with big pockets. I think they're essentially alleging a conspiracy by OpenAI and they need as many examples as possible to make the case that this was a pattern and standard practice, not just one or two idiots acting on their own. So if I'm a former Apple employee and I get one of these scary letters, I'm asking my attorney if I could get out of a lawsuit by sharing any information I have about any potential OpenAI shady practices.
- fisf 2mo agoThat's overly dramatic. At this point, the assumption would be that they are a non-party witness. So, beyond not destroying any potential evidence, you might as well tell them to shove it.
- elicash 2mo agoIt is not overly dramatic to suggest getting a letter like this is INCREDIBLY scary.
- s1artibartfast 2mo agoSeems kinds dramatic. Legal holds are common in my industry, not really a big deal. Most of my senior colleagues have been deposed or testified. Stressful but shouldn't be scary unless you did something criminal
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- hunmernop 2mo ago[flagged]
- reenorap 2mo agoApple must have hard evidence on this. I can’t believe they would take it this far without already knowing they are going to win. If they have to fire a huge chunk of their hardware employees it’s going to throw their IPO plans into chaos.
- jstummbillig 2mo agoWhat do you mean "this far"? How far is this? Corps lose law suits all the time. They always have to go whatever "this far" is before it happens, surely?
- cj 2mo agoFiling lawsuits against ex-employees is going pretty far. Not good PR for Apple if their claims are wrong. Companies often file frivolous lawsuits against other companies. It’s much rarer to throw frivolous lawsuits at individuals.
- doctaj 2mo agoJust to be clear, these are letters to individuals about the existing lawsuit with OpenAI, not new lawsuits against individuals.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> these are letters to individuals about the existing lawsuit with OpenAI, not new lawsuits against individuals My guess is these employees weren’t chosen randomly. If they refuse to coöperate with Apple, they’ll get personally sued as well. And the reality of the matter is, given Altman’s public persona and reputation, there is a good chance an AG somewhere starts looking at whether these folks broke any laws.
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- bix6 2mo agoPredictions on who wins? Does Apple actually have a winnable case or are they just throwing a wrench in things?
- moralestapia 2mo agoApple is not the company that makes this sort of thing just for fun. Also, they don't have a directly competing business with OpenAI, so slander doesn't make sense. I think this is genuine.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- rancar2 2mo agoOh the irony if Apple can get a larger OpenAI stake than Microsoft.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoI don’t think Cupertino will settle for stock. I think they’ll demand cash and an agreement that OpenAI abandon or reboot their hardware project. In the meantime, Apple gets an open kimono into everything OpenAI has planned. This could actually be the fuckup that kills OpenAI as an independent company. The threat of a cash judgement gums up not only an IPO, but also debt-based fundraising. (We equity guys are idiots, so we’ll probably keep writing cheques until the market turns.)
- an0malous 2mo ago> This could actually be the fuckup that kills OpenAI as an independent company. I wonder if they’ll be the Lehman Brothers of this bubble
- the_lucifer 2mo ago> I wonder if they’ll be the Lehman Brothers of this bubble That's exactly what this Yahoo Finance article today calls them at least [1] [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/lehman-brothers-ai-why-one-101718007.html https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/lehman-brot...
- pembrook 2mo agoI’m a huge fan of Apple but this kind of thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Regardless of whether OpenAI poached some of their talent or is the one in the wrong, Apple has such a massively dominant hardware business (some might say monopoly level in some areas) that for them to be publicly acknowledging how scared they are of OpenAI…it’s just…pathetic. They’re a $5T company and can’t muster up the motivation to get in the game and compete in the next computing frontier. Apple fanboys will invent some narrative about them swooping in with the best product as a laggard and claim it’s always their strategy, but I see zero evidence they have the capacity to do that anymore. The Siri situation is just absolutely pathetic and no amount of bad press about OpenAI is going to change the fact that Apple neglecting Siri for a decade now has been a big F-U to their customers.
- NBJack 2mo agoYou may want to read the related articles first. I'm personally quite anti-Apple on several fronts, but the evidence so far seems damning if it holds up in court.
- presbyterian 2mo agoThis isn't just them being scared of a competitor because they're able to outperform Apple, according to Apple they have proof of an active plan not just to poach talent, but to get that talent to syphon out information as they leave, as well as former employees keeping Apple hardware and using it to access confidential information. If what Apple claims is true, this is straightforwardly illegal. Could Apple be lying? Maybe, but that's a very risky move.
- pembrook 2mo agoIt totally could be illegal, and I don’t care. Those laws exist to entrench dominant incumbents, and make our economy less dynamic. The history of Silicon Valley and most of its innovation come from this kind of thing, and we eliminated non-competes in California for exactly this reason. Apple having a serious competitor in hardware would be a good thing for consumers all over the world. Apple’s overzealous secrecy culture starts to become insidious once you become such a dominant force in the marketplace. At what point do we allow their innovations to bleed into the rest of humanity and lower their margins so humanity doesn’t pay out a 60% tax to them anymore. I think they’ve made enough profits for investors at this point. Id be happy if my Apple stock went nowhere if it meant 20 other companies could grow and innovate new products off the back of it.
- ameen 2mo ago[flagged]
- hirako2000 2mo agoA non profit turned into a VC business, that would be natural to get subsidies from the public and immunity in the interest of national security.
- speak_plainly 2mo agoI wonder what Jony Ive is thinking about his partnership at the moment.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoI wonder if he knew.
- symfoniq 2mo agoOpenAI only exists due to the theft of content created by others. If Apple’s accusations prove to be true, it just means that OpenAI is consistent.
- Saline9515 2mo agoI think that it's quite clear in the digital era that you can't steal bits that are free to copy.
- b40d-48b2-979e 2mo agoI think it's quite clear that only applies to corporations. Workers will still go to prison.
- zarzavat 2mo agoIt's insane to cross Apple. In the worst case Apple could take the ChatGPT app down like they did to Fortnite. They are probably waiting for discovery to find out how high this goes.
- amelius 2mo agoWell, the EU won't allow it.
- jimbokun 2mo agoMaybe. Depends if they hate Apple or OpenAI more.
- bel8 2mo agoApple has a decade of beef with EU. OpenAI has a lot ot catchup on the EU hate scale.
- Ylpertnodi 2mo agoEu person: neither. We'd rather have the Chinese.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoYeah, I feel like given two bad choices the EU’s tendency would be to go with a third, worse option.
- 8note 2mo agothe US is looking to break up the EU and is sending its rich people to make riots and violence. choosing chinese seems like a shoo in for better operators
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
- quux 2mo agohttps://archive.is/3J3iw https://archive.is/3J3iw
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- Zigurd 2mo agoEverybody wants a platform but nobody wants to spend what it takes to make a platform. That includes things like Windows Phone, Fire Phone, all the glasses, Humane, etc. As much as everybody hates on OpenAI for chaotic management, they did buy Jony Ive and are presumably giving him everything he wants to build a platform for them. Even though it probably only buys them a 20% chance of success, they haven't doomed the project by underestimating what it takes budget-wise. And they blew it. Maybe they blew it by not realizing that even long time Apple employees could get arrogant about security. Or maybe it was a loose ethical environment in general. Whatever is it the root or the problem, they set billions of dollars on fire maybe tens of billions, by being unnecessarily cute about Apple proprietary information when they could've been above reproach. They had the resources to hire all the right people with the right knowledge and probably already had them on board.
- Apocryphon 2mo agoA decade ago Uber seemed poised to be the big tech powerhouse. Maybe not a platform per se (certainly not an ecosystem as other companies had it) but a major provider of software for all kinds of verticals beyond their core business. What happened to that?
- therealdrag0 2mo agoMany of them left and turned into startups around that tech, like Temporal.
- mprovost 2mo agoMost of Uber's "platform" seemed like pet projects that engineers used to justify promotions, and then were quietly abandoned.
- nicce 2mo agoUber managed to make the business by lobbying so hard. In some countries they broke the regulation of tax drivers and made the environment like wild jungle. Now, people don't feel "safe" anymore for random Taxis and prefer Uber in many places.
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- Danox 2mo agoAmong 40 greedy humans would several of them get too happy/carried away and copy sensitive information and take it somewhere else probably…
- small_model 2mo agoSo the ex-employee has to pay up or something, whats this got to do with OpenAI the company, seems like desperate attempt to slow down the company that will likely take Apple market share for dropping the ball on AI, they should look inwards rather than lashing out litigiously.
- Danox 2mo agoOpenAI the company really is as scummy as they come and that is probably why Apple gave them nothing unlike Microsoft, the Chinese model makers are currently proving that ultimately there is no moat around AI. Every day the cost of entry, software and hardware wise keeps getting smaller. Note: The only thing Google got out of Apple was a one billion dollar refund on an existing search engine agreement, AI real value in the future is as a new addition, to the existing programming stack or toolkit used by programmers. That value does not add up to spending $1 trillion dollars on capex. If Apple spends any big money in the next 2 to 4 years, they had better spend it on bringing the design and engineering of memory in-house to the Apple Silicon Group and TSMC.
- zuzululu 2mo agoLooks like a bunch of OpenAI employees involved in the theft are going to see prison time and nobody is going to hire them other than shady startup founders who will probably ask "is this guy going to steal from me " I think this is a good reminder that no company is going to put their neck out for you. IF you go above and beyond whether, whatever the carrot is on the end of the stick you chase, you are only good as what you give back. Never stay loyal or go all out for your employers, I think the new gen z are far more wiser. It's simply not worth it and I don't feel guilty for working three different employers via remote. Would they get mad and fire me if they found out? Sure. But then I'd just replace them with the next one. YOU are the only person you should be loyal to. Don't steal for companies, don't lie for companies, don't work extreme hours for some "startup equity" that won't mount to shit (note those are extremely rare) Collect your pay check, do the minimum, if possible find more pay checks.
- thewebguyd 2mo ago> Looks like a bunch of OpenAI employees involved in the theft are going to see prison time Very likely, and I don't see this brought up often. The discussions are always focused on Apple v. OpenAI, but there are very real, serious criminal charges here potentially. This goes well beyond just a civil lawsuit. Would not be surprised at all to see criminal charges soon.
- senordevnyc 2mo agoRight, just like you think that Apple is somehow going to magically get an injunction that freezes ALL software deployments at OpenAI and drives them out of business. People’s inability to reason in the face of their hatred for Sama is wild.
- zuzululu 2mo agoi dont hate sam and i dont get the vitrol but in this particular case if he's involved in theft of apple hardware then there is very good chance that the engineers who were at apple facilitated will at least get criminal sentencing, sam will be protected because there is too much on the line i think he's ability to protect the ex-apple engineers is limited as the trials proceed id think it'd be wise for him to remain insulated and distance for the sake of openai anyhow lawyers on both sides are going to be making far more money than any of their engineers, this trial will drag on for years and they will be eating good, settlement alone could be insane if courts side with apple which in this case seems pretty clear
- AlanAzarkin 2mo ago1. Maybe OpenAI is preparing a lawsuit against Apple to secure an antitrust ruling that would select OpenAI models for Siri. 2. Maybe Apple is preparing a lawsuit against OpenAI to force them to disclose their developments during the discovery process.
- stiltzkin 2mo ago[dead]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2mo agoAlternative to archive.ph Text-only, no Javascript (Seeking Alpha) curl https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA2880s6 \ |sed ' s/.*\"body\":\"/<meta charset=utf-8>/; s/\",\"readTime.*//; s/?utm_source.\{53\}//g; s/&source=more_on//g; ' \ |tr -d '\134' > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2mo ago0,1
- teravor 2mo agoeither openai carelessly stole stuff from apple or apple is trying to slow/hobble a competitive threat. why are people taking sides in the comments? either is equally likely at the moment. discovery could be interesting.
- whh 2mo agoStarting to feel like I might get a legal letter from my secondary school for not crediting them for what they've taught me.
- iJohnDoe 2mo agoApple is known for hiring the best and the brightest. These employees are clearly trash. Apple obviously missed the mark on these hires or they have a systemic problem in their hiring process. What a shame when there are amazing people out there that would love to work at Apple and would follow the rules and do a great job.
- lapelusa 2mo ago"OpenAI said it had “no interest” in other companies’ trade secrets." Of course they say that. As if their product can't just go anywhere it wants just through any user. Who's to say that they are not routing their info 'grabbing' through some executives at Apple that use ChatGPT?