• 2 min read
Apple-OpenAI talks reportedly collapsed after email mix-up
NBC News says an Apple lawyer emailed the wrong OpenAI executive, derailing pre-lawsuit talks over alleged trade secret theft.
Image: 9to5Mac
An apparent email mistake may have helped derail talks between Apple and OpenAI before Apple sued over alleged trade secret theft.
According to NBC News, Apple says it contacted OpenAI in February as part of an early investigation into whether confidential Apple hardware information was improperly making its way into OpenAI’s business. In its lawsuit filed last Friday against OpenIA io Products and former Apple employees Chang Liu and Tang Tan, Apple claims OpenAI never responded.
OpenAI disputes that account. Per NBC News, the company says it did respond, but communications broke down after an outside lawyer for Apple sent a follow-up email to the wrong person.
Recommended reading
Mira Murati’s lab unveils Inkling, a 975B open model
The report says Gabriel Gross, an outside attorney for Apple at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, emailed Che Chang, OpenAI’s general counsel, with the subject “Former Apple employees at OpenAI retaining non-public, confidential, and proprietary information,” along with attachments backing Apple’s accusations. 13 minutes later, Gross sent another email thanking Chang for a phone call and “for offering your cooperation so quickly.”
According to NBC News, that second message was not meant for Chang. It was intended for a former Apple employee at OpenAI whose last name is Wang. Gross had emailed both Chang and Wang, and had spoken with Wang by phone before mistakenly replying to Chang.
Chang reportedly took the note as fabricated and contacted two Apple in-house lawyers, accusing Gross of “lying about speaking with me on the phone,” and adding, “I don’t know who he is and we have never spoken.” He then asked for Gross to be removed from the matter.
NBC News says Gross later apologized, and one of Apple’s in-house attorneys told Chang he could continue communicating with Gross and his firm as the case progressed. But “the talks appear to have ended there,” the report says. OpenAI told NBC News it “has no record of subsequent outreach by Apple’s lawyers until Friday,” when Apple filed suit.
AI Editor
Ava covers the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, from foundational models and research labs to the real-world economics of intelligence. With a background in computational linguistics, she cuts through the hype to find out what actually works. She firmly believes that benchmarks are just marketing until reproduced in the wild.
via 9to5Mac
