Marketplace Tech

Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the AI startup stole trade secrets. The iPhone maker claimed that former Apple employees were asked to bring proprietary hardware to job interviews with OpenAI, and that the company tricked manufacturers into sharing Apple design secrets.

Plus, New York state becomes the first to enact a data center moratorium, and Uber is lobbying to slow the roll of autonomous vehicles in Washington D.C. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, to learn more.

Here’s what we talked about:

“The 6 wildest claims in Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI” from The Verge
“OpenAI’s First Device Will Be Movable, Screenless Speaker Built as AI Companion” from Bloomberg
“New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium” from Reuters
“Uber’s robotaxi lobbying effort puts it on a collision course with Waymo” from TechCrunch
“Robotaxi Riders Are Falling Asleep, Sparking Frantic 911 Calls” from Bloomberg

The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are suing Meta for $1.4 trillion, claiming the social media giant designed Facebook and Instagram to addict young users.

The case is heading to court in Oakland, California, next month. It follows a landmark verdict earlier this year: A Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for mental health harms to a young woman who said she'd become addicted to the platforms starting at nine years old.

And there are a slew of similar cases coming down the pike. To help break this down we're joined by Gaia Bernstein, law professor at Seton Hall Univerisity and author of the book "Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies."

Netflix may be the undisputed king of streaming, but it's facing a new challenge: "the sophomore slump." Internal data reported by Bloomberg show audiences dropping off dramatically for follow-up seasons of successful shows.

Series like "The Night Agent," "Beef" and "Avatar: The last Airbender" all lost 50% or more of their original viewers when they returned for season two. To figure out what might be going on and how Netflix could respond we called up Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics.

Last month, comedians Harris Alterman and Dave Ross posted a series of advertisements for made-up tech companies around the New York City subway system. The ads are fake, but they bear an eerie resemblance to the real AI marketing campaigns proliferating throughout U.S. cities. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with the two comedians about why the joke resonated with so many people and what’s next in terms of AI mockery.

Mitigating climate change likely requires not only lowering emissions, but removing existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And while the Trump administration has cut many climate initiatives, it's continued to fund some carbon removal projects. Marketplace’s Amy Scott reports.