Tech CEOs banding together is an old ruse recycled from corporate America to get a pass from antitrust laws
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei is not the first corporate CEO to suggest that excessive competition is driving the world to some socially undesirable outcome.
The safety breach disclosed by OpenAI after a swarm of its agents coordinated to breach their supposedly secure sandbox, get on the Internet and hack AI platform Hugging Face, warrants urgent action. It demonstrated the ease with which the technology can evade human control and gave concrete form to the existential fears about what it could do to humanity if not securely leashed.
US vice-president’s comments come as former Anthropic researcher revisits recent claim AI could destroy humanity
The US vice-president has dismissed calls for global regulation of AI safety risks, telling companies creating the most advanced models: “If you’re building Frankenstein, stop.”
In remarks addressed towards Dario Amodei, the co-founder of Anthropic who has called on Washington DC to coordinate control of AI systems, including with China, JD Vance said: “If you’re gonna create Frankenstein, don’t come to the government and say we need regulation.”
Trump and Republicans want companies to regulate themselves. It’s a dereliction of duty that will make AI less safe
It is hard to get Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Dario Amodei to agree on much. But over the weekend, all three AI company CEOs called for AI development to slow down in the face of growing, alarming risks. Their employees are sounding the siren too, with one researcher publicly quitting and accusing OpenAI and Anthropic of “gambling with our lives”.
The combination of dire warnings from insiders and growing real-world evidence of rogue AIs should, in a sane world, lead to government action. Instead, Donald Trump and the Republican leadership have their heads in the sand.
We examine claims and counterclaims about the risks and calls to slow down the pace of AI development
There have been some shocking claims in recent days about AI safety: we face a 10% chance of doom; AIs are worse than nukes; a “botnet” threatens the entire internet; it’s all a big tech psyop.
Below, we look at six claims and reactions to them.
OpenAI confirms weeks of AI safety talks with Anthropic and Google DeepMind, as Trump's team dismisses safety concerns and pushes to keep pace with China.
From Stephen Hawking to Jacob Coxon’s viral Anthropic resignation, fears that AI could threaten humanity have shaken the industry without stopping its pursuit
Before an Anthropic researcher resigned and declared human extinction imminent last week, tech leaders and scientists had sounded the alarm about a superintelligent AI ending humanity for over a decade.
The development of artificial intelligence “could spell the end of the human race”, warned professor and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in 2014 – a little less than a decade before the public got its hands on the generative AI features of the original version of ChatGPT.
Anthropic's Dario Amodei was at the forefront of this change in tone, arguing in a nearly 4,000-word essay this weekend that "we must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models" to avoid "a race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, [that] can make [catastrophic] risks more acute."
Within hours, other AI leaders were echoing the same call. OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman posted his agreement on social media and said similar pacing discussions had been taking place at OpenAI. Alphabet Chief Scientist and Google DeepMind cofounder and chair Demis Hassabis said that Amodei's essay "points towards the right path forward," and renewed his own recent call for an industry-wide standards body. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted that the company "welcome[s] the research, focus, and deliberate pacing needed to get alignment right as the design goal," ahead of the release of a lengthy "humanist AI" code of conduct for its models.
After apocalyptic warnings about the threats posed by AI, leaders like Sam Altman and Elon Musk backed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s calls to ‘slow the pace’
Facing a public uproar over Anthropic researchers’ repeated warnings that artificial intelligence could kill all of humanity by 2030, the AI company’s CEO, Dario Amodei, issued a proposal at the weekend to slow down the technology’s advancement to ensure public safety.
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit and posted at X last Tuesday, to over 25 million views, that “No other human activity poses this level of danger.”
One researcher who resigned said many in industry believe that without regulation AI could kill off humanity
Artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant Anthropic, one of whom has quit his job in protest.
The latest doom-laden predictions came in posts on social media on Tuesday by a researcher who said he resigned because Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI, were ignoring or at best mishandling their response to the threat.
The first teaser trailer of Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial has been released.
After being dropped by Amazon MGM Studios in June, the biopic of the OpenAI tech executive Sam Altman will be released in the US on 25 December by Neon after it premieres at the New York film festival this October.
Sam Altman has described himself as a “mega Apple fanboy” while discussing the trade secrets lawsuit now dividing two companies that were close technology partners only two years ago.
Speaking with journalist Alex Heath on the Sources podcast, the OpenAI CEO said he was “very sad” when he learned about the case. His admiration for Apple, however, did not soften his rejection of the allegations against OpenAI and two former employees.
Altman said the company does not want another business’s intellectual property and would dismiss anyone found to have improperly brought confidential material into OpenAI. He also said an internal investigation left him convinced that the employee at the center of the dispute had not acted improperly.
That is OpenAI’s account, not a resolution of the lawsuit. Apple alleges that trade secrets connected to hardware design, manufacturing and supply-chain operations were taken for the benefit of OpenAI’s consumer-device program. The defendants deny wrongdoing, and the court has not settled those competing claims.
Sam Altman Separates Personal Admiration From the Case
Altman’s response was unusually personal for a dispute of this scale.
Technology executives normally leave active litigation to lawyers and carefully written company statements. Calling himself a fanboy places Altman on familiar ground with millions of customers who admire Apple products while disagreeing with a corporate decision.
His first reaction, he said, was to assume that the accusations sounded serious enough that someone must have behaved badly. OpenAI then examined the matter and reached a different view.
Altman said the company would act if it found that someone had taken another company’s intellectual property. At the same time, he argued that an employee who had done nothing wrong deserved a defense.
That distinction is central to OpenAI’s public position. It does not deny that former Apple employees now work on its hardware initiative. Instead, the company disputes the allegation that their movement between employers brought protected information into the program.
Personal admiration cannot answer the evidentiary questions. Being a customer, praising a company or enjoying its products has no bearing on whether confidential files were accessed or used. Altman’s comments are more revealing as an account of how sharply the relationship has changed.
OpenAI once promoted its work with Apple as a partnership built around safety, innovation and access to advanced AI. It now describes the lawsuit as aggressive, inaccurate and unnecessary.
Image Credit: OpenAI
From ChatGPT Partnership to Hardware Rivalry
In June 2024, both companies announced an agreement to integrate ChatGPT into experiences across iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Siri could ask for permission to send certain requests to ChatGPT, while Writing Tools could use the model for composition and image generation. The integration gave OpenAI direct exposure inside some of the world’s most widely used personal devices without requiring every user to create an account.
At the time, Sam Altman said the partnership would introduce ChatGPT to users in a new way. Apple presented the external model as an optional extension of Apple Intelligence, keeping permission and privacy controls between the user and the third-party service.
The arrangement made sense while the companies occupied complementary positions. Apple controlled the devices and operating systems; OpenAI supplied a widely recognized generative model.
Consumer hardware changed that balance.
OpenAI is developing a family of AI-native devices with designer Jony Ive, whose work at Apple helped shape products including iPhone, iMac, iPod and Apple Watch. Tang Tan, another longtime hardware figure who previously worked on major Apple products, is now OpenAI’s chief hardware officer.
Once OpenAI began recruiting deeply from Apple’s hardware organization, the relationship was no longer limited to providing a model inside Siri. The companies were moving toward competition over the physical objects through which people may interact with AI.
That competition helps explain why the lawsuit reaches beyond an ordinary employment disagreement. Hardware development depends on manufacturing knowledge, component choices, testing systems, supplier relationships and production methods that can take years to build.
Apple’s complaint alleges that OpenAI benefited from confidential information in those areas. OpenAI argues that the case is being used to slow a potential rival and discourage employees from leaving.
What Apple Alleges Against OpenAI
Apple filed its lawsuit in July against OpenAI, Tang Tan and former electrical engineer Chang Liu.
The complaint alleges that former employees misappropriated trade secrets connected to product development and shared them with OpenAI as it accelerated its consumer-hardware ambitions. Apple has also sought a preliminary injunction intended to prevent the use of disputed information while the case proceeds.
According to Associated Press reporting on the original complaint, Apple accused OpenAI of encouraging recruits to provide confidential knowledge and advising them on how to avoid scrutiny during the transition between companies.
Those are allegations. OpenAI has denied that it requested, received or wants Apple’s trade secrets.
In its public response, OpenAI disputed several details surrounding Apple’s communications and treatment of departing employees. It argued that continued access to some files resulted from Apple’s own account-management practices and said former employees had attempted to handle that access responsibly.
OpenAI also said Tan had instructed his team not to use confidential material belonging to previous employers. Its motion to dismiss asks the court to reject Apple’s case, while its opposition to the requested injunction challenges the evidence and need for immediate restrictions.
Reuters reported that roughly 400 former Apple employees had joined OpenAI’s hardware initiative, according to figures appearing in court filings. Headcount alone does not establish misuse of trade secrets. It does illustrate the scale of the talent movement and why the dispute has become a defining fight over the next generation of personal hardware.
OpenAI’s Device Work Is Continuing
Sam Altman said he does not expect the lawsuit to slow the company’s device program.
That is the most direct business claim in his interview. It suggests that OpenAI has separated disputed material and personnel questions from the work it believes can continue without relying on protected Apple information.
Whether the schedule remains unaffected may depend on the court. A preliminary injunction could impose restrictions before a full trial, depending on its scope. A denial would allow development to proceed without that requested intervention, although the wider lawsuit would remain active.
OpenAI has revealed little about the devices themselves. The company has discussed an AI-native hardware family rather than a single conventional phone replacement, and Altman has spoken about the privacy discomfort created by products that visibly point cameras at other people.
That leaves the design, release timing and commercial strategy largely unknown. No product has been publicly introduced, and Altman’s assurance that development continues does not amount to a launch announcement.
The lawsuit also does not automatically end ChatGPT’s role across Apple platforms. The existing integration remains a separate customer-facing arrangement unless either company announces a change.
For people using ChatGPT through Siri or Writing Tools, the legal conflict currently produces more drama in court filings than difference on the screen. The stranger question is how long two companies can remain software partners while preparing to compete over the device sitting on the table beside that screen.
Image Credit: Samuel Boivin—NurPhoto via Getty Images
A briga entre a OpenAI e a Apple teve um novo capítulo na Justiça. Depois de rebater as acusações publicamente em carta aberta no início da semana, a dona do ChatGPT protocolou ontem (5/8) uma petição pedindo a um juiz federal americano que arquive o processo movido pela Apple, classificando as alegações da fabricante como sem fundamento.
Segundo a Bloomberg, os advogados da OpenAI argumentam que o processo distorce a conduta de seus funcionários e que um dos acusados de furto de dados, na verdade, tentava ajudar um ex-colega que continuava na Apple. Na petição, a empresa chega a dizer que a ação da Apple é “sem fundamento e forjada”, usada para compensar suas dificuldades em reter talentos e sua demora em integrar IA aos produtos.
Redigido sem investigação adequada e construído sobre comunicações seletivamente recortadas e condutas comuns tiradas de contexto, a reclamação da Apple é — tomando emprestada sua própria expressão — “podre desde a raiz”.
A defesa se concentra em dois nomes já conhecidos do processo. Tang Tan, chefe de hardware da OpenAI e ex-vice-presidente de design de produto da Apple por 24 anos, teria seguido práticas normais de recrutamento do setor ao entrevistar funcionários da Maçã. Já Chang Liu, engenheiro acusado de acessar arquivos confidenciais de hardware por semanas após identificar uma falha de autenticação, estaria apenas atendendo a um pedido de ex-colegas da Apple que precisavam localizar informações para o próprio trabalho — a OpenAI publicou trechos de mensagens de texto que, segundo ela, comprovam a versão.
A petição também questiona a base jurídica do processo: para a OpenAI, a Apple nunca chegou a identificar de forma específica quais informações configurariam, de fato, segredos industriais protegidos, nem demonstrou uso indevido por parte de qualquer um dos réus. Como reforço, a empresa de Sam Altman afirma não ter qualquer interesse nos segredos da rival, já que estaria “construindo algo inteiramente novo e diferente de tudo o que existe na Apple”.
OpenAI is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Apple accusing the artificial intelligence company of stealing trade secrets, saying that the iPhone maker’s allegations are meritless. https://t.co/9u2OTVWMlwhttps://t.co/ZmugpwLCWy
Outro ponto de defesa recai sobre as próprias práticas internas da Apple: segundo a OpenAI, a fabricante permitia que funcionários usassem contas pessoais do iCloud para trabalho e, posteriormente, revisou mensagens pessoais deixadas em dispositivos corporativos — o que teria gerado o acesso residual alegado no processo, e não um esquema coordenado de furto.
Chama atenção também a defesa específica de Tan quanto à posse de um documento interno sobre desligamento de funcionários: enquanto a Apple alega que o material serviria para burlar verificações de segurança, a OpenAI sustenta o oposto — que Tan teria guardado a informação justamente para garantir que novos contratados vindos da Apple seguissem à risca os procedimentos de desligamento da própria Apple, sem reter dados confidenciais.
Segundo o Axios, a petição tem 31 páginas e variações da palavra “fail” (“falhar”/”fracassar”, em referência às falhas da Apple) aparecem quase 50 vezes ao longo do texto — um indicativo do tom escolhido pelos advogados da OpenAI.
Injunção e próximos passos
O caso corre como Apple vs. Liu (processo 5:26-cv-07078) na Justiça Federal do Distrito Norte da Califórnia, sob o juiz Edward Davila — o mesmo que presidiu o julgamento criminal de Elizabeth Holmes, ex-CEO 1Chief executive officer, ou diretor executivo. da Theranos.
Paralelamente ao pedido de arquivamento, a OpenAI ainda precisa responder, até 17 de agosto, ao pedido de liminar feito pela Apple para suspender o uso de qualquer suposto segredo industrial enquanto o processo tramita. A audiência sobre essa liminar está marcada para 1º de outubro.
Até a publicação desta matéria, a Apple não havia se pronunciado sobre a nova petição da OpenAI.
Na carta aberta, intitulada “Apple is getting this wrong” (“A Apple está entendendo isso errado”, em tradução direta), a empresa de Sam Altman tenta demonstrar inconsistências na narrativa apresentada pela Apple aos tribunais, classificada por ela como “descuidada, agressiva e estranhamente pessoal”. A OpenAI também diz que a prática não faz jus à grandeza histórica da Maçã.
Quanto às questões endereçadas na carta, a acusação principal — de que Tang Tan, líder de hardware da OpenAI e ex-designer da Apple, utilizou seu conhecimento sobre os procedimentos internos da Apple para repassar informações confidenciais sobre os seus produtos — foi contestada, com a versão oficial da OpenAI alegando que Tang sempre foi enfático quanto à falta de intenção em fazer uso de segredos industriais de outras empresas. A confusão sobre a revogação de acesso já havia sido mencionada em uma reportagem do The Information.
Sobre Chang Liu, cuja acusação envolvia a retenção de dispositivos e acessos para baixar arquivos internos, a réplica à Maçã, caso verdadeira, é um tanto reveladora: na carta, foi mencionado que funcionários da Apple entraram em contato com Liu mesmo após a sua saída para localizar os arquivos de projetos internos, revelando uma fragilidade no processo de revogação do acesso a arquivos internos. As mensagens trocadas entre Chang e um funcionário da Maçã via iMessage foram divulgadas junto da carta.
Já tratando sobre a alegada ciência da OpenAI quanto aos temas do processo, a dona do ChatGPT expôs emails de advogados externos que representavam a Maçã admitindo um erro no envio das mensagens, ocasionado por uma confusão entre os sobrenomes de Che Chang (conselheiro geral da OpenAI) e de um funcionário de sobrenome Wang — a quem, alegadamente, se referia a mencionada conversa por telefone, que nunca aconteceu, de acordo com a carta e com uma confissão feita em um dos emails divulgados.
A carta não cobriu, no entanto, as acusações de que a OpenAI vinha incentivando funcionários da Apple a realizar entrevistas para os seus cargos e fornecer detalhes sobre dispositivos ainda não lançados, e nem o suposto contato feito por parte da OpenAI com fornecedores da Apple sob o apoio de dados internos importantes.
Solicitação de liminar
Ontem, a Apple solicitou, de maneira preliminar, uma liminar para impedir que Liu e Tan possam acessar, obter, utilizar ou divulgar informações confidenciais. O pedido foi rebatido na carta:
O pedido da Apple por uma liminar preliminar é baseado em informações falsas e é completamente desnecessário, porque não temos, nem queremos ter, nenhum de seus segredos comerciais. Estamos muito mais interessados em construir produtos e tecnologias inovadores que ampliem as fronteiras do que é possível.
Até o momento, a Maçã não se pronunciou sobre a resposta da OpenAI.
After years of pushing full speed ahead on AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says maybe it’s time for the AI industry to “pace” itself. The comments came just days after one of OpenAI’s own models broke out of its test environment and got tangled up in a breach at Hugging Face — though as Equity’s hosts point out, sloppy security seems to have […]
Sam Altman's side project — which seeks to scan the world's eyeballs and turn them into unique digital identifiers — has raised some fresh cash through a crypto sale.
Desde que a Apple levou a OpenAI aos tribunais por uma suposta violação de segredos industriais e propriedade intelectual, a ausência do nome de Jony Ive no processo tem sido motivo de especulações, considerando que o ex-executivo da Maçã e braço direito de Steve Jobs é uma peça relevante para o desenvolvimento de hardwares da dona do ChatGPT.
No ano passado, a startup de Ive, a io Products, foi adquirida pela OpenAI por US$6,5 bilhões. Desde então, o estúdio de design independente LoveFrom (também comandado pelo ex-Apple) passou a ser o espaço da gigante de inteligência artificial (IA) para a supervisão do design da sua linha de hardware. Nesse processo, mais de 400 funcionários trocaram a Maçã pela empresa de Sam Altman — entre eles, Tang Tan e Chang Liu, acusados de instruírem a revelação de protótipos da Maçã para quem estivesse em entrevista com a empresa de IA.
Para Mark Gurman, jornalista da Bloomberg, existem duas explicações lógicas para Ive ter ficado de fora das acusações: a ausência de provas que comprovem seu vínculo com o esquema e a sua relação de proximidade com a viúva de Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs.
Próxima de Tim Cook e de outros executivos da empresa — além de manter uma relação de longa data com Ive —, ela continua circulando com naturalidade entre ambos os lados, tendo inclusive participado da última WWDC como convidada.
Laurene também é uma das principais investidoras dos projetos de Ive e esteve ao lado dele e de Altman quando os dois revelaram que o primeiro dispositivo de IA da OpenAI já estava em desenvolvimento. Para Gurman, esse conjunto de relações pode ter contribuído para evitar que o nome do ex-chefe de design da Apple fosse envolvido diretamente na disputa judicial, especialmente na ausência de evidências que o ligassem ao suposto vazamento de informações.
According to Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman, Apple’s aggressive lawsuit accusing OpenAI of systematically stealing its intellectual property poses a significant threat to the AI company’s efforts to develop consumer hardware devices that could rival the iPhone — potentially disrupting those plans long before any courtroom resolution.
The Core Allegations
Apple filed the blockbuster suit last week, claiming OpenAI orchestrated a coordinated effort to misappropriate trade secrets. Key details include:
• OpenAI allegedly encouraged former and prospective Apple employees to bring unreleased product information, prototypes, CAD designs, and supplier details to interviews and new roles.
• OpenAI instructed hires on evading Apple’s security protocols, reportedly using a checklist tied to its former iPhone design leadership.
• Specific individuals named include OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan (a 24-year Apple veteran who led iPhone and Apple Watch design) and engineer Chang Liu, who allegedly retained access to Apple systems post-departure to download confidential files on unreleased products.
Apple claims it has uncovered a “pattern of theft” involving more than 400 former employees now at OpenAI. The suit also implicates io Products (Jony Ive’s hardware startup, acquired by OpenAI for $6.5 billion), describing OpenAI’s emerging hardware efforts as “rotten to its core” due to reliance on misappropriated secrets.
Why This Matters for OpenAI’s iPhone Rival Plans
OpenAI has been aggressively building a hardware division to create AI-powered consumer devices — potentially including a smartphone or agent-based hardware that could bypass traditional app ecosystems and compete directly with Apple’s ecosystem dominance. This push gained momentum with the io Products acquisition and talent poaching from Cupertino.
Gurman’s reporting highlights how the lawsuit creates immediate headwinds:
• Talent and Reputation Risks: Even without a final verdict, the public accusations could slow recruiting, damage partnerships, and invite scrutiny from suppliers wary of legal entanglement.
• Injunctive Relief: Apple is seeking court orders to bar OpenAI from using the alleged secrets, return materials, and preserve evidence—moves that could force redesigns or delays in OpenAI’s device timeline.
• Broader Competitive Tension: The clash comes amid a strained partnership (Apple integrates ChatGPT into Siri and Apple Intelligence), with both sides eyeing greater independence in AI hardware. OpenAI’s ambitions to reduce reliance on the iPhone now face a major legal and PR obstacle.
OpenAI’s Response and Context
OpenAI has denied the claims, stating it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and remains focused on innovative technology.
The suit escalates existing frictions, including reports of OpenAI previously considering legal action against Apple over their integration deal.
MacDailyNews Take: OpenAI has always been skeevy, from eschewing its open source roots to Sam Altman to desperately overpaying for a washed Jony Ive. Just plain skeevy.
If ever a Skynet would arise, we expect it would spring from the diseased loins of OpenAI.
This isn’t just a legal spat, it’s a flashpoint in the intensifying battle for the future of AI devices. Apple is fiercely protecting the decades of innovation behind its hardware supremacy, while OpenAI bets big on disrupting it with AI-first experiences. As Gurman notes, the disruption to OpenAI’s plans could be swift and substantial, regardless of how the case ultimately resolves in court.
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