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Visitors look at a Jidu Robo-01 electric SUV during the 20th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition at Canton Fair Complex on Dec. 30, 2022 in Guangzhou, China.

Zou Wei | Visual China Group | Getty Images

On Tuesday, the U.S. government accused a former Apple employee, Weibao Wang, of stealing trade secrets from the company’s self-driving car division, including the entirety of Apple’s “autonomous” source code.

The U.S. government did not identify in the charging documents who Wang works for now, but according to Reuters and several company profiles, Wang is an executive at Jidu, an electric vehicle joint venture between Chinese internet company Baidu and Chinese car maker Geely.

The U.S. government is concerned that Beijing is using various tactics to steal proprietary information from American companies, including “corrupting insiders.” Tuesday’s announcement was part of a Department of Justice task force designed to “counter efforts by hostile nation-states to illicitly acquire sensitive U.S technology.”

Federal prosecutors have accused Wang of agreeing to work for a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese automaker months before he left Apple in 2018, and of stealing privileged information dealing with Apple’s autonomous systems development, allegedly to give to an unnamed Chinese company.

According to a since-deleted LinkedIn profile that appeared in a Chinese-language interview, after Wang left Apple he began working at a health care artificial intelligence firm called Singularity.AI, which has offices in California and China. Following that, he worked as chief technology officer at Neolix, a Chinese self-driving car company. In 2021, Wang joined Jidu to run the company’s intelligent-driving efforts.

In June 2018, law enforcement officials searched Wang’s apartment on Apple’s suspicions that he had taken internal company files. Wang purchased a ticket and flew to China the same day, according to Tuesday’s filing. The charges suggest Wang can no longer travel to the U.S. without risking arrest.

Wang is the third former Apple employee from China to be accused of stealing trade secrets from Apple’s self-driving car division. Xiaolang Zhang, who worked at Apple around the same time as Wang, pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from Apple in August. And ex-Apple employee Jizhong Chen is also facing charges, but a trial date for his case has yet to be set.

Neither Zhang nor Chen were able to leave the country before they were arrested separately in 2018 and 2019, and Apple lawyers said in 2019 they were worried that they would flee to China.

Apple has reportedly been working on a self-driving car since at least 2015, although it has never discussed its goals or plans publicly and no car has been announced. The most public sign of Apple’s efforts is a fleet of cars with sensors for gathering data, which can be spotted driving around some California neighborhoods.

In February, Jidu confirmed plans to deliver its first car this year, and that it will be using ChatGPT-like technology in its vehicles.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment. An Apple representative declined to comment. Baidu and the FBI’s San Francisco field office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI’s viral AI video creator

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI's viral AI video creator

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence video app Sora has already grabbed the top spot in Apple‘s App Store as its number one free app, despite being invite-only.

Sora, which was launched on Tuesday, allows users to create short-form AI videos and share them in a feed. The app is available to iPhone users but requires an invite code to access.

Here’s how to snag a Sora app invite code:

  • First, download the app from the iOS App Store. Note that Sora requires iOS 18.0 or later to be downloaded.
  • Login using your OpenAI account.
  • Click “Notify me when access opens.”

A screen will then appear asking for an access code.

Currently, OpenAI has said that it is prioritizing paying ChatGPT Pro users for Sora access. The app is only available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out to additional countries soon, the company said.

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If you do not know someone who can provide an access code, several people are sharing invite codes on the official OpenAI Discord server, as well as on X and Reddit threads.

Once you input your access, you will be able to start generating AI videos using text or images. Users are also able to cameo as characters in their videos as well as “remix” other posts.

The app is powered by the new Sora 2.0 model, an updated version of the original Sora model from last year. The video generation model is “physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable” than prior systems, the company said in a blog post.

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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OpenAI’s invite-only video generation app Sora tops Apple’s App Store

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OpenAI's invite-only video generation app Sora tops Apple’s App Store

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

OpenAI now has two of the top three free apps in Apple’s App Store, and its new video generation app Sora has snagged the coveted No. 1 spot.

The artificial intelligence startup launched Sora on Tuesday, and it allows users to generate short-form AI videos, remix videos created by other users and post them to a shared feed. Sora is only available on iOS devices and is invite-based, which means users need a code to access it.

Despite these restrictions, Sora has secured the top spot in the App Store, ahead of Google‘s Gemini and OpenAI’s generative chatbot ChatGPT.

“It’s been epic to see what the collective creativity of humanity is capable of so far,” Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, wrote in a post on X on Friday. “Team is iterating fast and listening to feedback.”

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Sora is powered by OpenAI’s latest video and audio generation model called Sora 2. OpenAI said the model is capable of creating scenes and sounds with “a high degree of realism,” according to a blog post. The startup’s first video and audio generation model, Sora, was announced in February 2024.

OpenAI said it has taken steps to address potential safety concerns around the Sora app, including giving users explicit control over how their likeness is used on the platform. But some of the initial videos posted to the app, including one that depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting, have sparked debates about its utility, potential for harm and legality.

“It is easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL-optimized slop feed,” Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “The team has put great care and thought into trying to figure out how to make a delightful product that doesn’t fall into that trap, and has come up with a number of promising ideas.”

WATCH: OpenAI’s Sora 2 sparks AI ‘slop’ backlash

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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Jeff Bezos says AI is in an ‘industrial bubble’ but society to get ‘gigantic’ benefits from the tech

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Jeff Bezos says AI is in an 'industrial bubble' but society to get 'gigantic' benefits from the tech

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos speaks with John Elkann, CEO of Exor and chairman of Ferrari at Italian Tech Week on October 3, 2025.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

TURIN, Italy — Artificial intelligence is currently in an “industrial bubble” but the technology is “real” and will bring big benefits to society, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos said on Friday.

The term bubble usually refers to a period of inflated stock prices or valuations of companies that have disconnected from the fundamentals of a business. One of the most famous bubbles that burst was the 2000 dotcom crash where the value of internet companies plummeted.

Exor CEO John Elkann asked Bezos on stage at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Italy whether there were signs that the current AI industry is in bubble.

“This is a kind of industrial bubble,” the Amazon founder said.

Bezos laid out some of the key characteristics of bubbles, noting that when they happen, stock prices are “disconnected from the fundamentals” of a business.

“The second thing that happens is that people get very excited like they are today about artificial intelligence,” Bezos added.

During bubbles, every experiment or idea gets funded, he told the audience.

“The good ideas and the bad ideas. And investors have a hard time in the middle of this excitement, distinguishing between the good ideas and the bad ideas. And that’s also probably happening today,” Bezos said.

“But that doesn’t mean anything that is happening isn’t real. AI is real, and it is going to change every industry.”

This is a breaking news story. Please refresh for updates.

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