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Apple on Friday accused OpenAI of stealing secrets about products still in development, setting up a legal face-off between two of the world’s biggest tech companies.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the consumer tech giant said that OpenAI, a leader in artificial intelligence that has a new hardware business, had asked job candidates from Apple to share details about secret projects and to bring device components and prototypes to their interviews.

Apple also accused an OpenAI employee of downloading internal documents from a laptop owned by the iPhone maker.

OpenAI used the confidential information to approach Apple’s manufacturing partners, including asking one partner to demonstrate Apple’s technique for finishing metal on its devices, the lawsuit says.

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[-] Xerxos@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

That sounds serious, but I wonder what it is that OpenAI wants from Apple? Currently they are mostly on the software side and Apple's secrets more on the hardware side.

Is it for the rumored physical AI thing they wanted to build?

[-] vane@lemmy.world 18 points 20 hours ago

When you're AI company so you can't stop stealing.

[-] DevDave@piefed.social 71 points 1 day ago

It's kinda insane to frame OpenAI as remotely equal to Apple with "two of the world's biggest tech companies".

Apple has multiple profitable revenue streams, hundreds of physical stores, that giant donut super villain headquarters, they basically own multiple factory towns in Asia, and on top of it they have an ocean of capital hidden somewhere for a "rainy century" scenario. I think their only consistent loss leader is AppleTv, right?

OpenAI's business is generating something embarrassing like $100 for every $1000 spent (just random exaggerated numbers as sarcasm).

This outrageously dishonest narrative is being pushed constantly everywhere and I am more than just sick of it.

[-] KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 21 hours ago

They're both just hype machines and they both dgaf about the environment.

[-] Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 21 hours ago

I mean, yes, the entire premise of ChatGPT is "we stole all the data we could to give you really convincing, logically devoid, text generation!"

[-] rottenmummy@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago
[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 102 points 1 day ago

Apple accuses Data Scraper Inc. of scraping data.

[-] CovertOperative@piefed.zip 47 points 1 day ago

This appears to go quite a bit beyond scraping data.

[-] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I know of a bunch of Apple folks (through a family friend) who went to open AI early on for big pay raises, but said it sucked there and planned to cash out after a year or 2. I wonder if they’re on anyone’s radar. Gonna ask next time I see them.

[-] errer@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

Yeah ironically OpenAI is stealing hardware secrets here it sounds like

[-] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Youre right; its scraping data owned by someone with lots of money and lawyers.

[-] Thaurin@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

This is not about scraping data.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 13 points 23 hours ago

Exactly. Comments from people not reading the article are not uncommon, but these haven't even read the synopsis included in the post.

[-] badgermurphy@lemmy.world -3 points 17 hours ago

Often, the subject of conversations drift or expand to adjacent and related subjects. I have seen so many of these comment police posts trying to constrain the comments to the point where essentially they're just summarizing the article, and I dont understand why.

In my case, I was replying to the previous poster, not the article. In his case, I dont know what his intentions were, but I also don't care whether he read it for the context of the tiny thread it was in. I was responding to the comment he made in that thread.

You can even make your own thread if you don't like this one! Give it a whirl! You can engage with whatever content you want, or make your own. Theres a secret 3rd option, too: you can choose not to engage with it if you dont like it.

I dont think we need 2 comment cops to write us a comment moving violation though. You can cover more ground if you split up and harangue twice as many people at a time.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 3 points 16 hours ago

tldr. Just like you and the article.

[-] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 0 points 16 hours ago

Its amazing that you can infer my knowledge and actions without knowing or reading about anything I've done or said.

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 37 points 1 day ago

Most of the time, I don’t care about corporate slap fights, but this will be fun to watch.

[-] chaogomu@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago

If even half the accusations are true, then OpenAI doesn't have a chance in hell of existing at the end of this. The accusation alone might sink the company. They're projected to be completely out of money this time next year, they might have saved it with an IPO, but the general vibe is not optimistic for them, and that was before being accused of blatant industrial espionage of Apple IP.

I have never once given Apple money, and very likely never will, but if they kill OpenAI and pop this bubble then I'll give them a slight nod of respect before I go back to asking pointed questions about why all their factories need suicide nets.

[-] bjc@scribe.disroot.org 2 points 17 hours ago

i dunno, apple has a real habit of suing for theft and losing

[-] chaogomu@lemmy.world 5 points 17 hours ago

Suing as a patent troll, but this sound lass like Apple being Apple, and more like some serious, and highly illegal, industrial espionage from OpenAI and Sam Altman.

Sam Altman built his business on theft, and may very well seriously overstepped here. I also expect a bunch of former Apple employees going to jail over the physical thefts, and that too will cause OpenAI problems because they asked for the thefts, and likely paid the former Apple employees.

[-] sundray@lemmus.org 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It might be a long shot but there is a possibility that if they lose, OpenAI just hands the keys over to Apple. I don't know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

[-] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 44 points 1 day ago

We're going to need a lot of popcorn.

[-] ccunning@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago

Fingers crossed for a juicy discovery and not a settlement đŸ€ž

[-] chaogomu@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

The possibile end of the bubble.

[-] DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago

It was totally the AI guys
 It’s evolving so fast even we can’t comprehend it. It’s totally not one of our engineers.

Apple is just pissed nobody’s going for enhanced intelligence.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 43 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Apple on Friday accused OpenAI of stealing

That's pretty much OpenAI's modus operandi, is it not? Like, they've stolen from everyone else on the planet, why did Apple think they were special? It's like they invited the Hamburgler to their BBQ and are shocked when all the sliders disappear.

Illustrated

[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 46 points 1 day ago

There's scraping data, which should be considered stealing, and then there's asking people to steal company data as part of an interview process.

This is actual industrial espionage. If true, it could be a big deal.

[-] MrKoyun@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

I fucking hope it is.

[-] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

Apple is very litigious when it comes to their products, and has the capital and the best lawyers in the world available for them to call on.

The legal fees on this will cost millions.

[-] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

They ended up losing to Google on touch screens, but this seems like way more of a problem.

[-] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
[-] tias@discuss.tchncs.de -3 points 1 day ago

Oh no!

Anyway...

this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
367 points (98.4% liked)

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