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by bigyabai 21 days ago
This isn't a very great defense, either. Apple started the trend of seeking federal protectionism to avoid liability for market damages. Now OpenAI, with their own federal connections, are going to seek to exert political pressure for a settlement. This is a turnabout-is-fair-play moment in the ugly, lawless Thunderdome arena of modern businesses.

Grok and Meta are non-sequiturs here. Their reputation isn't being put under a microscope - Apple's is. And just looking at Apple's history suing businesses like NSO Group and Corellium doesn't instill much confidence in their ability to protect their IP or exact damages outside of a legal settlement. Up against OpenAI, they'll be forced to fold for all the same reasons they had to throw away their (entirely justified) case against NSO Group.
1 comments
overgard 21 days ago
I think you're incorrect here, what's being put under the microscope is not Apple, it's OpenAI and as a consequence a large swath of the AI industry. (It's the same people moving between the same companies -- probably similar ethics at all these places)

They absolutely deserve to be under a microscope.

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bigyabai 21 days ago
Sure - again, this is like saying that "NSO Group is under the microscope" - which they were!

But Apple lacks the political intuition to take NSO Group down. Apple is reliant on the US Federal government, which in-turn is deeply reliant on both NSO Group and Apple. It made all the sense in the world to force the companies to settle, even if it was an absolutely gross miscarriage of justice. We're going to see the same thing happen here; OpenAI will cry foul to the feds, who will inevitably determine that they can't let their investments pickpocket one another. Mr. Trump will send a very strongly-worded voicemail to Sam and Tim, asking them to make amends or face limited federal support in their future ambitions. Both of them will likely settle out-of-court and then announce a partnership to bury the hatchet.

It will be gross, unfair and likely cause irreparable market harm. In other words, forcing Apple to abandon their lawsuit is nothing that the fed hasn't done before.

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overgard 21 days ago
It sounds like a possibility, I will grant. However, I think having their dirty laundry aired at a time when they're losing enterprise customers to anthropic is going to be extremely painful. "IP theft from a competitor" is absolutely a thing a company is going to look at before they trust all their IP to a provider.
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