苹果诉讼能否打乱 OpenAI 的硬件计划？

苹果最近对 OpenAI 提起了商业机密诉讼，指控这家 AI 公司存在不当行为模式，目的是让现任和前任苹果员工分享机密信息。（作为回应，OpenAI 表示“未发现任何证据表明该投诉有依据”。）

在最新一期 TechCrunch 的 Equity 播客中，Kirsten Korosec、Sean O’Kane 和我讨论了这起诉讼是否会给 OpenAI 备受关注的硬件业务计划（从一款移动智能音箱开始）以及上市计划蒙上阴影。

“暂且不论法院是否会针对 OpenAI 的行为发出任何禁令或限制令，这本身就很可能会导致 OpenAI 手头工作的延迟，”Sean 指出，“我相信这很可能是苹果采取此举的部分原因。他们不会随意行事。”

考虑到这些计划岌岌可危，OpenAI 是会尽快寻求和解，还是从最近对埃隆·马斯克的法庭胜利中学到，自己能够承受审判的成本与难堪？至少 Kirsten 预测是后者。

继续阅读，了解我们对话的预览，为控制篇幅和清晰度有所编辑。

Kirsten Korosec: Sean，对于 Sam Altman 可能用你口袋里的小设备监听你，你有什么感觉？

Sean O’Kane: 我没问题。可能这在意料之中，但我没问题。敬谢不敏。

我们肯定会深入探讨，但这据称是 OpenAI 与 Jony Ive 及其团队在硬件部门合作的首款产品。自他们去年发布那个奇怪视频以来，他们一直含糊其辞，视频中他们坐在旧金山的咖啡馆或酒吧里，模糊地谈论硬件和传统设备，也就是笔记本电脑和手机。所以如果这就是他们的方向，那些希望有这样一只耳朵时刻倾听的人请自便，但这不适合我。

Anthony Ha: 关于这类设备，我们还需要记住一点：根据它的移动程度，它不仅会听你说话，还会听你周围的人。我可能可以接受——其实我接受不了，但假设我可以——可如果我们在线下 Disrupt 大会见面，那它可能突然就在监听我们所有人。

如果这些设备普及开来，就有各种社会规范需要重新协商。我认为我们应该嘲笑和批评那些未经同意就录制他人的人。

Kirsten: 嗯，我提起这个被猜测了很久的设备，等它正式推出时我们会看到它到底是什么，但在苹果上周五提起的这起诉讼背景下，这一点很重要。

这无疑是本周最大的新闻，而且这是一起商业机密诉讼。其中包含一些相当骇人的指控，我们必须强调，这些只是苹果在诉状中提出的指控。它指控 OpenAI 存在一套最高层参与的不当行为模式，专门针对曾在苹果工作过的 OpenAI 员工。实际上，他们在诉讼中点名了首席硬件官 Tang Tan。

这一切都很重要，因为苹果指控 OpenAI 实质上窃取了他们的商业机密，并可能将其用于竞争性硬件产品。我在想，或许我们不必讨论这起诉讼的理据，毕竟尚未走完完整的证据开示程序，但除了感叹这会很精彩之外，你们对诉讼的初步印象如何？

Sean: 两点。第一，这对 OpenAI 正在进行的任何工作都可能构成相当大的风险。即使不考虑法院是否会对 OpenAI 的行为发出任何禁令或限制令，这本身就很可能会导致 OpenAI 项目的延迟，而我相信这很可能是苹果采取此举的部分原因。他们不会随意行事。

第二，我们认为 OpenAI——我们知道他们已秘密提交 IPO 申请。如果你相信 Sam Altman 关于 IPO 的谨慎措辞，上市最早可能在今年年底或明年初。而这恰恰引发了一系列问题，因为一方面，我们认为他们目前的业务可能绝大部分是软件；此刻他们并未真正将任何硬件业务纳入考量。

他们即将进入市场，向银行家和投资者推销他们认为的可寻址市场，如果其中很大一部分押注在潜在的硬件部门及硬件产品上，这就会构成巨大风险，并改变 IPO 定价的众多考量因素。这就是我的想法。

Anthony: 有一项[指控]我猜苹果肯定掌握着相当确凿的数据，那就是他们称现在有超过 400 名苹果前员工在 OpenAI 工作。诚然，两家都是拥有数千乃至数万员工的大公司，所以按百分比来看未必很大，但看起来人才流失相当严重。

另一件我琢磨的事也跟 Sean 的观点有关。在潜在 IPO 的背景下，OpenAI 从已经历的那场审判中，在市场和品牌方面到底遭受了多大损害？那场官司他们似乎基本胜诉，但庭审过程中抖出了不少虽不算糟但颇为尴尬的内部丑闻。他们到底是抱着“我们可不想再来一次”的心态，还是吸取了“嘿，我们挺过来了，哪怕再跟苹果打一场官司也没事”的教训？

Kirsten: 顺便说一句，我完全预测是后者。

Apple recently filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the AI company of a pattern of misconduct aimed at getting current and former Apple employees to share confidential information. (In response, OpenAI said it is “not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit.”)

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I debated whether this lawsuit will cast a shadow over OpenAI’s much-discussed plans to get into the hardware business (starting with a mobile smart speaker) and go public.

“Even setting aside whether or not the court grants any kind of injunctive relief or any kind of restraining order over what OpenAI is doing, it just naturally can lead to that sort of situation where it’s going to cause some delays in what OpenAI is working on,” Sean suggested. “Which I’m sure was probably part of the reasoning behind Apple doing this. They don’t do this stuff willy nilly.”

With all those plans on the line, will OpenAI try to settle this as quickly as possible, or did it learn from its recent courtroom victory against Elon Musk that it can endure the cost and embarrassment of a trial? Kirsten, at least, predicts the latter.

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Kirsten Korosec: Sean, how do you feel about Sam Altman listening to you with a little device maybe in your pocket?

Sean O’Kane: I’m good. Maybe that’s predictable, but I’m good. No thanks.

We’ll get into it, I’m sure, but this is allegedly the first product that OpenAI has been working on in its hardware division with Jony Ive and company. They’ve been really coy ever since that weird video they put out last year of them sitting at that coffee shop or bar in San Francisco and sort of talking very vaguely about hardware and legacy devices, meaning laptops and phones. And so if this is the direction they’re headed in, all power to people who want to have somebody like that always listening to them. This is not going to be for me.

Anthony Ha: Part of what we have to remember about those kinds of devices is also that, depending on how mobile it is, it’s not just listening to you, it’s listening to the people around you. I might be fine with it — I’m not fine with it, but let’s say I was — but then if we met up in-person at Disrupt, then suddenly it might be listening to all of us.

There’s all kinds of social norms that are going to have to be renegotiated if these things become widespread. I think we should make fun of and criticize people who record other people without consent.

Kirsten: Well, I bring up the device that has been speculated about for a really long time, and we’ll see what it really ends up being once it’s officially introduced, but it’s important in the context of this lawsuit that Apple filed last Friday.

It was the biggest news of the week, certainly, and this is a trade secret lawsuit. It has some pretty wild allegations and we should very much emphasize these are allegations that have been filed in a complaint by Apple. But what it is accusing OpenAI of is a pattern of misconduct at the highest levels, specifically directed towards OpenAI employees who used to work at Apple. And in fact they’ve named the chief hardware officer Tang Tan in this lawsuit.

This is all important because Apple is accusing OpenAI of essentially stealing their trade secrets, but in the context of that, this could be then used for a competing hardware product. I’m wondering if maybe we don’t get into whether this lawsuit has merits, because we haven’t gone through full discovery, but what are your initial impressions of the lawsuit aside from the fact that wow, this is going to be entertaining?

Sean: Two things. One, this is a pretty big risk potentially to whatever it is OpenAI is working on. Even setting aside whether or not the court grants any kind of injunctive relief or any kind of restraining order over what OpenAI is doing, it just naturally can lead to that sort of situation where it’s going to cause some delays in what OpenAI is working on, which I’m sure was probably part of the reasoning behind Apple doing this. They don’t do this stuff willy nilly.

The other is that we think that OpenAI is — we know that they’ve filed confidentially for an IPO. We think it might happen as early as the end of this year, or early next year, if you believe Sam Altman’s cautious language around the IPO. And this just raises a whole bunch of questions around that because, on the one hand, we think their business right now is probably overwhelmingly the software; they’re not really factoring in any hardware business into that picture at the moment.

They’re about to go to the markets and they’re going to be pitching bankers and investors on where they think their addressable market should be, and if they have a big amount of that pegged to a potential hardware division and hardware products, this could be a huge risk to that and changes a lot of the calculus of sort of how the IPO gets priced. So that’s where my head’s at.

Anthony: One [allegation] that I assume that Apple must have pretty solid like numbers on is, they said more than 400 Apple employees now work at OpenAI. Granted, both of them are very large companies with many thousands or tens of thousands of employees. So as a percentage, it’s not necessarily huge. But that seems like a lot of people and a pretty serious talent drain.

And the other thing I’m wondering is related to Sean’s point. With the context of the potential IPO, how much damage did OpenAI ultimately take from a marketing and brand perspective from the trial it already went through? That it seemed to basically win, but there was a lot of not-terrible-but-kind-of-embarrassing dirty laundry that came out in the testimony. To what extent are they just like, “We do not want to go through that again”? Or did they take the lesson of, “Hey, we went through it and we survived and we’ll be okay if we have to do another trial with Apple”?

Kirsten: I fully predict the latter, by the way.