David Ingram, reporting for NBC News (which recently added a paywall without gift links, alas):
Apple alleged in a lawsuit last week that OpenAI “never responded”
to its concerns this year about what Apple believed was trade
secret theft. But emails reviewed by NBC News show that’s not the
full story: OpenAI did respond in February to Apple’s initial
outreach. The communications became bogged down and, according to
OpenAI, abruptly stopped after an outside attorney representing
Apple mixed up the names and email addresses of two OpenAI
employees who had the last names Wang and Chang.The emails show that Gabriel Gross, a lawyer for Apple with the
law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, intended to email an OpenAI
employee with the last name Wang but instead emailed a different
employee with the last name Chang and confused their interactions.
Gross apologized a day later for his mistake, but the interaction
appeared to upset OpenAI’s general counsel, who asked Apple to
remove the outside counsel from the matter. Apple declined. […]By the next morning, a Tuesday, Gross had realized his error and
wrote a third email to Chang. He said he had intended to send
the second email to the former Apple employee who had gone to
work at OpenAI.“After we had emailed Mr. Wang yesterday about retaining Apple
information, he promptly called me and offered to cooperate with
Apple in resolving any issues. I then intended to email him again,
but accidentally replied to my email chain with you instead. I
apologize for the confusion that likely caused,” Gross wrote.Based on that email, Chang believed the issue had been resolved
and didn’t respond, according to Pusateri, the OpenAI
spokesperson.
It’s slightly embarrassing to conflate two rhyming surnames and mistakenly send an email intended for one person to the other, but I don’t see how this is a big deal. And I definitely don’t see how it refutes Apple’s claim that OpenAI didn’t respond to Apple’s February letter laying out their initial accusations. The back and forth seems to have gone like this, paraphrasing:
Apple lawyer: Here’s a letter and three exhibits where we lay out our claims of trade secret malfeasance at OpenAI.
Apple lawyer, to the wrong person: Thanks for the phone call.
OpenAI lawyer, who had not yet responded: WTF? I never called this guy.
Apple lawyer: Sorry, that second email wasn’t for you, I made a mistake.
And then at that point, we’re to believe that the OpenAI lawyer presumed the entire matter was settled? That makes no sense. If this is OpenAI’s defense they’re in bigger trouble than I thought. And why did NBC News think this was exculpatory in any way?
