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Some 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
by joshstrange 3mo ago
Some 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.
- ErneX 3mo agoThis isn’t the first time something like this happens and I always wonder how are these seemingly smart people earning good money so dumb.
- paxys 3mo agoIntelligence is domain-specific. People who have put too many skill points in technical knowledge often have none left for common sense and street-smarts.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- groundzeros2015 3mo agoIntelligence is actually extremely general and transferrable - IQ measures meta skills and ability that predicts success in a plethora of areas. If you don’t believe in IQ consider agency and conscientiousness
- wqaatwt 3mo agoStatistically yes but we need to look at the actual distribution and I doubt it’s just a handful of outliers.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo agoNo, stupidity is very general. The statistical association between different areas of ability, which is reified in the concept of IQ, is because people who are bad at one thing are bad at everything. The Stanford-Binet test was developed as a way to measure mental disability, not giftedness. (Einstein would have had an unexceptional score on an IQ test, had he ever taken one. His schoolteachers thought him destined for failure.) To put it another way, polymaths are unusual but idiots are everywhere. And people who are outstandingly good at say, computer engineering can be mediocre at philosophy or business administration. Psychometrists distiguish between crystallized and fluid intelligence. Expertise is a combination of knowledge and ability. But ability itself is multifaceted, and raw talent goes untapped without the motivation to study and the opportunity to work. For most areas of human endeavor, being smart enough is all that is required. Being a genius helped Albert Einstein reimagine physics, but did not make him a better patent clerk.
- groundzeros2015 3mo agoI mostly agree and I don’t think you are contradicting my claim. > stupidity is very general So then what do you call the general ability of the absence of stupidity? Einstein does have a high IQ. > Expertise is a combination of knowledge and ability Yes expertise is not the same as intelligence.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo agoI question the coherence of this notion of intelligence as continuum of domain-general ability. Specific measures of ability tend to cluster at the low end more than they do at the high end. This explains both the correlations among abilities, and the fact that high abilities tend to be domain-specific. An IQ score over 70 has a clinical meaning: it defines the absence of mental retardation. Scores of 90 and 160 are equivalent for this purpose. "Giftedness" in a domain-general sense is an abstract concept that may or may not map onto something real. The validity of IQ testing derives from measuring the other end of the scale.
- atlasunshrugged 3mo agoRight? Just straight up documentation with no shame: From an Axios article on this > Liu celebrated the exploit, according to the filing. "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny," he said in a message to a former colleague who was still employed by Apple. https://www.axios.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-trade-secret-theft https://www.axios.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-trade-sec...
- ErneX 3mo agoAppalling.
- paul7986 3mo agoIt is but it is the Silicon Valley way and business way for many. Steamroll and do whatever it takes to win and be successful. Morals what are those?
- doginasuit 3mo agoExactly. If ever there was a y'all deserve eachother situation, it is this.
- dylan604 3mo agoThese companies are big enough (especially financially) that I'm really surprised that they do not have their own FBI/CIA/NSA departments in the world of corporate espionage.
- hn_go_brrrrr 3mo agoDon't worry, some do.
- ipdashc 3mo agoMeh. It's one megacorp stealing stuff from another megacorp, hardly "appalling", who cares. I'd probably react the same way; I just wouldn't leak it to my next employer, that's dumb.
- bigyabai 3mo ago"Picasso had a saying -- 'good artists copy; great artists steal' -- and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs
- yugioh3 3mo agoGreat artists steal ideas, not a painting off a gallery wall.
- jay_kyburz 3mo agoa "metal-finishing technique" _is_ an idea. joke
- brandon272 3mo agoWhen you are bulk copying data off your former employer's network share, that is a lot more than "stealing ideas".
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- simondotau 3mo agoThe concept of applying some kind of Apple-ish texture finish to metal is an idea. A research-heavy, highly specific, finely tuned, multiple step, trade secret, brand signature metal finishing technique is a painting.
- al_borland 3mo agoHaving a certain type of finish on the metal is an idea. Tricking someone into using Apple’s exact trade-secret finishing technique is copying. Making a new, even better technique, that’s so good the general public forgets about Apple and thinks you’re the new benchmark… that’s the kind of stealing that quote is talking about.
- mikeocool 3mo ago
- calebio 3mo agoGoogle/Waymo + Uber/Otto comes to mind here with Anthony Levandowski.
- xnx 3mo agoGoogle and Uber started as courtroom enemies, but probably had to commiserate some on Anthony Levandowski probably being the worst hire they both made.
- kridsdale1 3mo agoWhen all that went down, I was at Facebook. And some recruiter posted the news that Anthony was no longer at Uber, with a message like “this is a great opportunity to secure a top tier hire!” I replied (on Workplace) “Absolutely the fuck NOT.”
- CobrastanJorji 3mo agoAmazing character. Started as a regular robot-loving engineering kid, was in the right place at the right time and earned something like $140 million from Google, mostly from truly ludicrous performance bonuses, went to Uber for another giant payout, was worth nine figures. And sure, he was convicted for crimes, but he got one of those definitely-legitimate Trump pardons. And then he managed to turn that into a negative $50 million net worth. And also he briefly started a religion based around having an AI inventing a Christian god or something because his story wasn't crazy enough.
- xnx 3mo ago> And also he briefly started a religion I always assumed this was a tax-avoidance scheme
- generj 3mo agoIt’s even more ridiculous when choosing to do it Apple. It’s hard to think of a company with more legal resources and which is more protective of its hardware IP.
- kridsdale1 3mo agoAnd vindictiveness. Steve declared thermonuclear war on Google because Android re-skinned to use BUTTONS.
- formerly_proven 3mo ago> Steve declared thermonuclear war on Google because Android re-skinned to use BUTTONS. Was there ever a point in time where Google was not the default search engine on iOS?
- Cyberdog 3mo agoYes, briefly: https://qz.com/apple-google-yahoo-search-engine-safari-antitrust-trial-1851458765 https://qz.com/apple-google-yahoo-search-engine-safari-antit...
- woadwarrior01 3mo ago> because Android re-skinned to use BUTTONS. No. Steve's rage was justified, IMO. It was because Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board while simultaneously being Google's CEO and Google was surreptitiously building Android at the time. Mother of all conflict of interests. There was a recent story that reminded me of it. Mike Krieger was on Figma's board and Anthropic's CPO, while Anthropic was surreptitiously building Claude Design.
- Chu4eeno 3mo agoIt wasn't very surreptitiously, Google very loudly bought Android Inc. for 50 million in 2005, two years before Apple ripped of the phone that won the iF Design Award in 2006, the LG Prada.
- truncate 3mo agoOverconfidence. These people think they are much smarter than others to be caught.
- ofjcihen 3mo agoI’ve been present when the world comes crashing down around people who thought they were too smart to get caught. The surprise in their eyes is always very genuine.
- stavros 3mo agoBecause companies get an advantage by having their people do this. You only hear about the times they get caught, but apparently they get caught so rarely that it's worth it.
- kbelder 3mo agoEverywhere I've ever worked, if I went to management and said "hey, I've got some files from my last job, if you want to see them," they would say "absolutely not, please get rid of them RIGHT NOW," and probably fire me. But, I don't work in Silicon Valley.
- stavros 3mo agoCompanies don't get to be worth billions of dollars without doing something unethical.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo agoIt's people who hold these beliefs who commit these acts. They're so convinced everyone around them is depraved, usually–at least in part–through personal experience, that they don't stop to consider the alternative.
- danshipt 3mo agoNah. Simple logic: look at Thiel and Musk. Two of the most deplorable human beings out there
- loeg 3mo agoI work for a Silicon Valley headquartered company and would expect the same.
- tonyedgecombe 3mo agoI had the opposite issue, I once got criticised for not bringing client information with me.
- jerf 3mo agoINT 18 WIS 3 is a terribly dangerous build in this world.
- deebosong 3mo agoTo your point, I've come across many who conflate the 2. Wisdom seems like making good choices for long-term positive outcomes, where there are no rulebooks, lots of uncertainty, and the incentives thrown in your face to act in one direction are only a tiny fraction of the whole picture. Intelligence seems like an aptitude to grasp concepts that lend itself to wielding a specific thing to a certain utilitarian end. I'm sure others have said it better than me. But the folks I've met who are obviously intelligent seem to lack the ability to understand the consequences of their choices, and have already predetermined they're not only justified in their myopia, but somehow assume/ presume social support from everyone around them no matter how short-sighted their ideas are that come with obvious negative consequences if you look even one-step beyond their immediate outcomes. Something like that. All to support your point.
- nsz65 3mo agoMore like lot of people are leaving Apple for OpenAI (no surprise) and an Apple manager wants to send a signal to everyone leaving to chill with what they walk out with. Corps have to perform a lot of theatre because there is lot of info constantly leaking out.
- zzyzxd 3mo agoThose people are designers. And they don't necessarily understand software, data, or security. When I explained to my non-technical friends about how they were being tracked by website cookies, it sounded like a sci fi story to them. But yes, it's dumb. I was more surprised by how they managed to keep using work devices after termination. This sounds to me like a failure of their manager to do their job to follow the standard exit process.
- miroljub 3mo agoYou assume they have a standard exit process.
- astrange 3mo agoA VP is not a designer, and doesn't have a standard anything.
- fsthrowaway 3mo ago> This sounds to me like a failure of their manager to do their job to follow the standard exit process. It's very safe to assume Apple has a standard exit process, for low level ICs. Tan was Apple's vice president of iPhone and Apple Watch product design. This person worked for Apple for 25 years and likely a friend of top executives. I wouldn't be surprised if he just hugged everyone and casually walked out on his last day.
- Hadriel 3mo agoseemingly smart is the key here. intelligence doesnt make up for ethics.
- loeg 3mo agoYeah but it isn't just unethical, it's also deeply stupid -- you will be caught.
- SoftTalker 3mo agoAnd I'd question the intelligence also. I don't think employment at FAANG means a lot in that regard.
- throwyawayyyy 3mo agoEither people are being really, really silly (which cannot be discounted), or the potential reward is so high as to override whatever qualms a normal person must have. Is that it? Is this people looking at a solid career at Apple or sudden millions from OpenAI, and thinking the risk is worth it somehow? Or, more darkly, is it people thinking _this is my only chance and I have to take it_? Or is it trickle-down lawlessness?
- therealdrag0 3mo agoSometimes the reward is pitifully small. There was a podcast about insider trading and sometimes the insiders will give the information for free or a negligible sum. There’s something in human psychology that facilitates collaboration even in unethical acts.
- TheJoeMan 3mo agoAs a counterpoint, why should a “metal finishing technique” be proprietary? Lying to the vendor that Apple said it’s ok is obviously wrong, but an employee taking that knowledge in their head doesn’t seem wrong to me. We have moved past the age of indentured apprentices and the freemasons.
- estearum 3mo agoBecause Apple paid to produce that knowledge? It's good that people can spend a lot of time and money developing new knowledge and then for some period of time they get to exclusively reap the rewards of doing so. Do you mind if I MITM all of your work output, your emails, your code, your messages, and attach my name to it and then receive your paychecks in exchange for my work?
- Marsymars 3mo ago> Because Apple paid to produce that knowledge? It's good that people can spend a lot of time and money developing new knowledge and then for some period of time they get to exclusively reap the rewards of doing so. You’re describing patents?
- JumpCrisscross 3mo agoAnd NDAs. I may develop a non-patentable technique. That doesn't mean I can't share it with you under NDA and, if you breach said NDA, enforce it.
- SoftTalker 3mo agoTrade secrets. A legally recognized thing, and legally protected.
- estearum 3mo agoI'm describing "intellectual property," patents being only one way to legally protect such property.
- yxhuvud 3mo ago
- tehjoker 3mo agoGenerally speaking, companies retaining a competitive advantage with each other is good for their investors but bad for the public. It's usually to the public's benefit for employees to share knowledge, it makes goods and services cheaper and more available.
- UncleMeat 3mo agoIf "eliminate all IP law" is your preference then that's fine but it isn't a reason to commit crimes while we have these laws.
- rileymat2 3mo agoIP law can be a thing while maximizing transparency by not including trade secrets as a concept.
- matheusmoreira 3mo agoCivil disobedience.
- wang_li 3mo agoCivil disobedience involves flagrantly and publicly and obviously violating the law so you can be arrested to draw attention to whatever issue you have with the law. If you’re breaking the law and trying to get away with it, that’s just criminality and isn’t honorable or respectable.
- matheusmoreira 3mo agoCivil disobedience is the breaking of laws your conscience tells you are unjust -- and accepting all possible consequences that come along with such an act. Doesn't mean you have to make it trivial for the consequences to find you by literally walking yourself into jail.
- dash2 3mo ago
- ryandrake 3mo agoCulture issue. From How to Apply to Y Combinator[1] by Paul Graham: "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." > we’re not looking for the sort of obedient, middle-of-the-road people that big companies tend to hire. We’re looking for people who like to beat the system. 1: https://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html https://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html
- estearum 3mo agoNah You can beat the system and be disobedient while still behaving ethically. In fact that's the very best time to beat the system and be disobedient.
- dndnfbfn 3mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- estearum 3mo agowat pretty sure PG and sama had a pretty serious falling out because it turns out sama is a complete snake but you know, go off king (or whatever)
- PacificSpecific 3mo agoI think the person you are replying to was referring to Gary tan
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- e28eta 3mo agoAnd, if YC is paying attention, this question might make a good filter for the unethical folks who’re willing to admit to their misdeeds.
- miroljub 3mo agoEvery single time. If someone calls himself open, you should know who it is and what to expect.
- Aurornis 3mo agoIt gets even worse. The person not only kept the laptop and used an exploit to download confidential Apple documents, they bragged about it to a contact who was still working at Apple who was also feeding him information: > 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. He also maintained a relationship with Yu-Ting "Alyssa" Peng, an Apple employee who continued to give him updates on Apple's projects, vendor decisions, and engineering details. When Liu learned he still had access to Apple's systems, he texted Peng "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny." This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply to you. Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them and I wipe any access credentials or authenticator codes that might be on any of my devices. I can't imagine being so brazen that you'd keep the company laptop and then start using an exploit to download confidential information for your new employer. Doing it at a the company that most aggressively enforces secrecy is even crazier.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo agoWe need criminal charges to be filed against Liu, Tan and Peng. (And deep discovery to find anything Altman might have said to or about them.)
- nujabe 3mo agoWait, who is “we”? Why are you so invested in enforcing Apple’s IP rights?
- IcyWindows 3mo agoSome people care about justice in general? Also, normalizing stealing IP is only going to have bad consequences for everyone.
- nullc 3mo ago[flagged]
- saghm 3mo agoThe crucial part of why non-competes are gross is that they're trying to enforce what you do after someone stopped receiving anything from the past employer. If someone is helping competitors when still working somewhere, or actively taking stuff from their past employer after they've left, then yeah, of course that's dumb and should be punished. But there's no reason a non-compete clause is needed for that!
- ungreased0675 3mo agoTheft of trade secrets and a non-compete are unrelated and separate things.
- nextos 3mo agoYes, this is why garden leaves are popular in quant finance. You get paid for about a year to do nothing so that the trade secrets from your firm (trading strategies) expire. That's very different from a non-compete. A non-compete is about your own know-how, not the company's.
- saghm 3mo agoYour gripe is with the parent comment then for mentioning them in the first place, not me. I was just responding to their aside.
- paxys 3mo agoThe companies are based in California, so regular non-competes are irrelevant. This is solely about IP theft.
- saghm 3mo agoI was responding to a direct statement by the parent comment about non-competes. If you think they're irrelevant, you should complain to them, not me.
- itopaloglu83 3mo agoThat’s the key point, what’s happening here is theft.
- petilon 3mo agoThis may be just one bad employee, i.e., Mr. Tan. Your quoted sentences say OpenAI did such and such, but it may all be just Mr. Tan. That's not to say OpenAI is not responsible because they are supposed to give strong guidance to new hires that they are not to bring any confidential information from their former employer.
- ls-a 3mo agoApple will lose this because they didn't do the due diligence to do basic protection against this.
- duxup 3mo agoYeah every job transition I’ve managed I was straightforward and some new employers instructed me to do so. It’s weird too, these people’s history will show up on job sites and etc, people will find out… fast. The examples seem clumsy and amateurish.
- DrewADesign 3mo agoSure, “Trade Secret” non-competes are usually a pretext employers use to keep low-wage workers under their thumbs, but protecting bonafide trade secrets is their only sorta legitimate use, IMO. The world would be better if they were illegal, but letting engineers disperse confidential information from their last employer wouldn’t be the beneficial part.
- yoyohello13 3mo agoIt seems to be a common trait of the AI people to just brazenly violate the law. It’s like a requirement for working at openAI is to think rules don’t apply to you because you’re so smart.
- calf 3mo agoNo it's because they think they're saving the world.
- JKCalhoun 3mo agoI hate to use the word sociopath, because it has such a fine point on it, but if you believe there are smart "sociopaths" out there, might they be attracted to AI in general (companies like OpenAI or SpaceXAI specifically)?
- Laurel1234 3mo agoSam Altman raped his sister and assassinated a whistleblower. He's been removed from his last two companies for being a habitual liar (he managed to strongarm his way back into OpenAI of course). He only has money brcause he sold his first company based on fraudulent user numbers. Hard to imagine people will go work for the plagiarism machine run by a sociopath because of their high ethic and moral standards.
- JKCalhoun 3mo agoI was describing a "magnet" effect, you're describing a "filter". Interesting.
- yoyohello13 3mo agoNothing more dangerous really.
- captainbland 3mo agoAlthough they are doing pretty much the precise opposite of that. As it tends to be, I suppose.
- mandeepj 3mo ago> Apple says it discovered a pattern of OpenAI recruits emailing themselves confidential information when leaving Apple, including Tan. That's one of the dumbest things one can do while on their soon-to-be ex-employer's network.
- MichaelDickens 3mo ago> 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. Reminds me of how Sam Altman told the board that a safety reviewer had approved one of their AI models when the reviewer had done no such things.
- tonyhart7 3mo agomake sense since they stole all of humanity knowledge for their gain
- villgax 3mo agoAirDrop you mean lol? Anyone can now have a local LLM make a QR code based data transfer script
- Griffinsauce 3mo ago> emailing themselves These are supposedly our brightest minds..
- aucisson_masque 3mo agoRemember it's apple lawyer words, not established facts.
- SilverElfin 3mo agoApple colluding on no poaching agreements was far worse and more damaging. So I don’t feel bad for them.
- ozgung 3mo agoI think a mandatory first thing for any engineer is to learn, understand and commit for life to the Ethics of their profession. It's a shame all these very picky recruitment processes and 'culture' of these giant companies didn't care about ethics and morality. Relevant articles in IEEE Code of Ethics: 3. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist; 4. to avoid unlawful conduct in professional activities, and to reject bribery in all its forms; From NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers: III.4.b. Engineers shall not, without the consent of all interested parties, participate in or represent an adversary interest in connection with a specific project or proceeding in which the engineer has gained particular specialized knowledge on behalf of a former client or employer. https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8 https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8 https://www.nspe.org/career-growth/nspe-code-ethics-engineers https://www.nspe.org/career-growth/nspe-code-ethics-engineer...
- latexr 3mo ago> I think a mandatory first thing for any engineer is to learn, understand and commit for life to the Ethics of their profession. That’ll never happen with the current incentives. Programming is too easy to get started with and too well-paid to not attract unethical people who are only interested in money.
- pixl97 3mo agoAt the same time why would businesses want programmers with high standards of ethics? Such programmers wouldn't make the child killing drone software, or the software that steals their life savings via dark patterns.
- sumeno 3mo ago> It's a shame all these very picky recruitment processes and 'culture' of these giant companies didn't care about ethics and morality. Oh, it absolutely does, just not in the direction that's good for society. OpenAI (as one example) didn't become like this by accident, it was intentional. Sam Altman isn't going to hire ethical leadership for his company, they would just get in his way.
- paradoxyl 3mo agoCompanies take cultural cues from leadership. When you have a puffed-up sociopath who has never accomplished anything but lying his way to the top, this is what you get. I'm both infuriated and worried that such a flim-flam man has put himself at the center of the U.S. stock market.
- hiworld6543 3mo agoCorrect.
- lII1lIlI11ll 3mo ago> 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. Most of what happened in this case is straight-up illegal and other parts can be covered by NDA. No need for non-competes to prevent any of this.
- krzyk 3mo agoHow did he keep laptop?
- ct0 3mo agoHow do we know this wasn't Apple's plan all along? A double agent of sorts isn't a new concept.
- wavemode 3mo agoElaborate?
- gigatexal 3mo agoI hope Apple crushes openAI in this lawsuit and everyone who leaves for OpenAI and bag of cash instead of their dignity and honor is made known.
- dimitrios1 3mo ago> it's "here is how to steal secrets on your way out" which is even grosser. Thank you for recognizing this. As much as the developer community has come out against companies non-competes in the past, we should come down on even harder on one of our own stealing, because this does the most harm against the case against non-competes. It's grosser in the sense that one company doing a foul thing is bad, but ideally people can band together and work to dismantle the foul thing. But a person legitimizing the foul thing is the greater harm.
- varispeed 3mo agoShould we believe that OpenAI is not stealing secrets of companies using their models?
- _fat_santa 3mo agoWhat does the financial compensation need to be for an engineer to actually do this? I'm gonna assume that if you work at Apple and are being recruited by OpenAI, you are not a dummy. Then you probably know that doing something like this runs the risk of you getting sued by a trillion dollar company. If I had a potential employer ask me to do this, I would reply "oh hell fucking no", withdraw my application, and notify my companies security, legal and HR teams. But then again it's easy to have the moral high ground when you're not staring down an offer that will completely change your and your families lives. I'm sure most employees probably thought what I'm thinking until they are looking at a 7 figure offer.
- abnercoimbre 3mo agoGoes the other way around too: many many employees didn't care about layoffs or the less fortunate until [complete this sentence].
- zeroonetwothree 3mo agoClaims in a lawsuit always seem very favorable towards their side or else they wouldn’t have filed. The truth usually ends up more in the middle.
- tcp_handshaker 3mo agoThe out of court settlement, OpenAI will pay Apple , with no recognition of guilt... will be in the billions, but 100 times smaller than the business advantages they will get from it. Its the cost of doing business and OpenAI knowns it.
- nerdsniper 3mo agoNon-competes are awful. But enforceable protections for trade secrets makes perfectly good sense. Two very different things!
- preg_match 3mo agoOpenAI is a company that has built 100% of it's revenue off of theft. Not that I think that's necessarily a bad thing, at least for some domains. Nor do I think it makes their product not valuable. But, it does mean that obviously they have zero regard for pesky things like "trade secrets" or IP. They shit on IP, like, as a rule. This is why I was frustrated nobody was prosecuting the AI companies in the beginning when the IP theft first started. Sure, we might not care if they stole books off of libgen, whatever. But big picture here, is this a precedent we want to allow and what are the consequences? Turns out the consequences were obvious: intra-American espionage and corporate sabotage. Oops, that doesn't bode well for home-grown AI.