首页 / Apple has been accused of outsourcing "unethical practices" to other companies in order to profit from artificial intelligence.

Apple has been accused of outsourcing "unethical practices" to other companies in order to profit from artificial intelligence.

2025/1/30 01:59:28

Apple faces potential shareholder scrutiny over its AI practices. The National Law and Policy Center (NLPC) has proposed that Apple disclose how it obtains and uses external data for AI training, citing legal risks related to data privacy and intellectual property. The NLPC accuses Apple of outsourcing unethical practices to third parties like Alphabet and Meta to monetize its user base while maintaining a privacy-centric brand image. While Apple promotes on-device intelligence and privacy-centric machine learning, its reliance on partner integrations like OpenAI raises concerns about data transparency. The proposal is likely to be rejected by Apple, but it highlights growing scrutiny over AI ethics in the tech industry.

Apple may face new shareholder scrutiny over its practices in artificial intelligence, according to a filing the company submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing was submitted ahead of Apple's next annual shareholder meeting, scheduled for 8:00 AM Pacific Time on February 25th.

The National Law and Policy Center (NLPC) has submitted a proposal to Apple urging the company to disclose how it obtains and uses external data for AI training. The filing, publicly available on the SEC website, highlights potential legal risks related to data privacy and intellectual property. Despite Apple's brand image aligning with privacy-centric policies.

What's in the Proposal?

NLPC's proposal, listed as Proposal No. 4 in Apple's 2025 proxy materials, asks Apple to submit a report outlining its policies regarding AI data acquisition and ethics. Specifically, NLPC wants Apple to address:

The risks associated with training AI models using data obtained illegally.
Apple's privacy safeguards in AI development.
Measures taken to ensure that AI-generated content complies with legal and ethical standards.

The National Law and Policy Center for Artificial Intelligence (NLPC) believes that as a leading tech company renowned for user privacy, Apple should set higher standards in AI ethics. The proposal points out that competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Meta have already faced lawsuits for allegedly using unauthorized data to train AI models.

In fact, the NLPC model ruthlessly summarizes Apple's AI development strategy:

The company has achieved great success with its user privacy-friendly branding, but the monetization potential of its massive user base is too tempting. Apple has resorted to outsourcing unethical practices to third parties. For example, it established a long-term partnership with Alphabet (one of Apple's main competitors), making it the default search algorithm on Apple products. This deal, estimated to be worth $25 billion and accounting for 20% of Apple's pre-tax profits, not only triggered antitrust scrutiny but also provided Alphabet with ample opportunities to collect Apple user data. Alphabet is notorious for various ethical and privacy violations. Essentially, Apple outsources its unethical activities to Alphabet while reaping massive profits. This is the strategy Apple attempts to implement in the AI domain. Besides collaborating with OpenAI, Apple has also explored partnerships with Meta, another company repeatedly accused of violating user privacy.

What Does This Mean for Apple?

Compared to some competitors, Apple's approach to AI applications is more cautious, focusing on on-device intelligence and privacy-centric machine learning rather than large-scale cloud-based AI models.

Specifically, Apple promotes its private cloud computing model, designed to not transmit or retain any account data when using Apple Intelligence.

However, Apple's privacy policy ends there when Apple Intelligence relies on partner integrations. Currently, OpenAI's ChatGPT is the only partner, but Apple has publicly expressed openness to integrating Google's Gemini in the future.

Apple explicitly requires users to grant permission even for non-first-time use before enabling third-party AI integration with the Apple Intelligence platform.

What Happens Next?

First, this proposal is almost certain to be rejected. Apple typically opposes supporting shareholder proposals, and due to such reasons, shareholder proposals tend to fail. We'll keep you updated on the developments next month.

Nevertheless, outsourcing AI technology development to "unethical practices" remains a sharp accusation—especially when analysts praise Apple for not wasting money catching up with AI competitors but rather offering them on the Apple platform.

What do you think? Should Apple disclose more about its AI training data? Let us know in the comments below.