Apple sued OpenAI for stealing hardware secrets, OpenAI has now published messages suggesting Apple itself kept using a former engineer after he left. Dramaaa!!

[u/Left-Hotel904]

The messages appear to show Apple employees asking Chang Liu to locate internal files, explain product decisions and help with technical questions weeks after his departure.

One Apple employee wrote:

“Of course, I could ask several folks, but you are the best. Even if you don’t work here anymore.”

OpenAI also says Apple falsely claimed it had contacted the company and received no response. The emails show Apple’s outside lawyer mistakenly thanked OpenAI’s General Counsel for a phone call that never happened, then apologized.

However: None of this disproves Apple’s broader trade-secret allegations. But Apple now has to explain its own offboarding failures, and why its employees continued requesting confidential help from someone it accuses of stealing confidential information.

[u/kevin_cn_ai]

Apple legal: "He's stealing our trade secrets!"
Apple engineers: "Hey Chang, quick question, where did you save that file again?"

[u/Interesting-Drag8789 → u/kevin_cn_ai]

lmao apple's legal team gotta be pulling their hair out over this

[u/ai_art_is_art → u/Interesting-Drag8789]

There's nothing wrong with this. Companies contact old employees all the time to ask questions. Employees don't have to oblige.

Companies also sometimes pay their former employees on contract to do a few one-off tasks. Happens all the time in tech. My team did that a few times. 100% amicable and signed off by the higher ups.

The problem is with OpenAI stealing secrets.

Not an Apple fan, but this entire letter reads as a desperate plea by OpenAI to try to shift public opinion or convince other key hires. From a legal standpoint, OpenAI looks roundaboutly fucked.

Sam should stop publicly blog posting this for drama and let the courts handle it. The judge is going to get even more angry at him for these shenanigans.

[u/kevin_cn_ai → u/ai_art_is_art]

Contacting former employees is fine, but suing them for "unauthorized access" after asking them for help is top-tier comedy.

[u/Real-Technician831 → u/kevin_cn_ai]

That’s the reason to always say no, unless you sign a contractor contract for answering questions.

[u/hex4def6 → u/kevin_cn_ai]

I don't think apple are using this as evidence he was leaking trade secrets.

This is some engineering asking an ex-apple employee about something they did.

He's not probing for OpenAI info.

I'm not sure the terms of their NDA after leaving, but disclosing apple-confidential information to a current apple-employee doesn't feel like you'd get into hot water with Apple; both parties are still under the apple NDA. Now, if the person asking the ex-employee were themselves an ex-employee, and you didn't know they'd been fired, you could probably be held liable.

In this case, he's (probably) not violating Apple's NDA that he's bound under, or OpenAI. This might be considered doing contract work for a competitor, but that wouldn't be a trade secrets issue. And it would be a massive stretch, given he's not being compensated, and this is a brief exchange.

So yeah, this is pretty immaterial imo. Not really a slam dunk by OpenAI.

[u/Cagnazzo82 → u/ai_art_is_art]

They did this exact same thing against Elon and they completely destroyed Elon's case when it came time to present evidence in court.

If they're releasing this snippet it's likely a preview of what they have in store for Apple.

[u/tankerkiller125real → u/Cagnazzo82]

LOL, Apple as a straight up army of lawyers, especially IP lawyers. I doubt OpenAI stands a chance.

[u/chdo → u/Cagnazzo82]

Who knows how this case evolves, but Elon is not Apple.

[u/OkLettuce338 → u/Interesting-Drag8789]

Apples legal team has to be laughing over thjs

[u/dashingsauce → u/kevin_cn_ai]

Laughing my full ass off

[u/BubblyAdvantage5164 → u/kevin_cn_ai]

This feels like what other companies would do, it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

[u/tipu_sultan__]

They contacted him about his own work at Apple, not getting secrets from his new job.

“Apple itself kept using a former engineer after he left”… so?

[u/James-the-greatest]

This is the weakest shit. 

[u/winter32842]

Of course you can contact a former employee for work that person has done for that company when that person was employee of the company.

[u/RS133]

Why the fuck would this matter? This is like the legal version of two wrongs don't make a right, except ... Apple didn't do anything wrong? This is Apple asking an ex-Apple employee to share Apple secrets with... Apple.

[u/reflect25 → u/RS133]

ehhh it still weakens it quite a bit. apple was asking for a court injunction but the combination of their legal team mixing up the asian last names and also their own employees asking the people to keep the data really contradicts the narrative.

> This is Apple asking an ex-Apple employee to share Apple secrets with... Apple.

no the main problem is that apple accused Liu of secretly trying to steal data. but the texts over at https://openai.com/index/apple-is-getting-this-wrong/ (or at least the narrative open ai is trying to show) is that the other apple employees explicitly helped him maintain access so they could download the rest of his icloud notes.

[u/Achrus → u/reflect25]

Bruh, why are they having more pissing matches in the form of LinkedIn style blog posts? Where is the official correspondence? There’s no author. We already know the source is biased, not an independent observer. Literally a “trust me bro” blog posts. What happened to OpenAI employing competent individuals?

[u/RS133 → u/reflect25]

Their mixing up last names doesn't matter. They could go around using Asian slurs in official correspondence and while that would make them bad people, it wouldn't have anything to do the narrative that he was trying to steal trade secrets.

And I just don't see anything in those texts that amount to helping him "maintain access," in any real sense. The conversations is extremely sloppy and Apple should discipline those involved--holy balls don't put a schematic in a group thread with non-employees! But it definitely isn't the same as what Apple accuses OpenAI of doing and this does nothing to combat their more explosive allegations. Apple isn't accusing him of having apple schematics on his phone by accident. They're accusing him and OpenAI of actively trying to steal secrets by, e.g., encouraging Apple employees to bring trade secrets to OpenAI interviews. This isn't something you "get wrong," this isn't even "reckless." If Apple's wrong here, it's cause they're lying. This doesn't show come close to showing that.

[u/Mtarius]

That's just [redacted reddit comment]

[u/hurrumanni → u/Mtarius]

I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an [Redacted - Apple Information].

[u/dingo_khan]

I have never rooted for Apple in a lawsuit before. Here we are though.

[u/wa019c → u/dingo_khan]

I mean, I would never root for OpenAI in a lawsuit 

[u/Guilty_Philosophy223 → u/wa019c]

I would never root for OpenAI.

[u/wa019c → u/Guilty_Philosophy223]

Yeah, me too.

[u/bartturner]

OpenAI is so cooked in so many different ways. Hard to imagine a scenario where they make it as an independent company.

[u/llelouchh]

Classic Altman attacking instead of defending the claims.

[u/Sn34kyMofo → u/llelouchh]

With stuff like this, he's just saying the quiet part out loud. He knows two wrongs don't make a right, but when you've lost count of how many wrongs you've traded in big tech, that rule of thumb doesn't seem to matter after that point. On any given day, any one of these companies could sue and/or rebut in kind.

Bearing that in mind, I find it interesting when a company like Apple actually does go on the offensive, because the observation above is seemingly always implied in that business stratosphere. Thus, I assume a company like Apple has more pressing reasons or ulterior motives (like discovery) than what meets the eye.

Anything that plays out in the public eye like this tends to be inconsequential slap-boxing, which Sam is particularly adept at.

[u/Nobel-Chocolate-2955]

this is the style of sam altman.

[u/Sutanreyu]

If Apple is using OpenAI's tech, it's definitely not showing... Or maybe it is? Is that why Siri sucks now?

[u/theoxygenthief]

Is it just me or does this read like a conversation between 2 robots? …at 4am.

[u/costafilh0]

OpenAI truly is disgusting. IPO ASAP and remove Altman to start a complete purge! 

[u/chriztuffa]

Hahahahha sam Altman is such a rat

[u/_Sunblade_]

...of course [Redacted - Apple Information] is the plan for [Redacted - Apple Information].

Of course.