alt Hacker NewsI’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.
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You can’t poach talent, because companies don’t own their employees.
You can steal trade secrets, which is what this case is about.
(If you’re going to suggest a full rewrite of IP and anti-trust law, you should at least have an understanding of the current situation.)
This 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.
You 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.