Former Google software engineer convicted of AI espionage, trade secret theft
A federal jury in San Francisco found a former Google software engineer guilty of espionage and theft of trade secrets in the first-ever espionage conviction related to AI.
Following an 11-day trial, the jury on Thursday found Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets – including thousands of pages of Google trade secrets that were stolen to help China.
“In today’s high-stakes race to dominate the field of artificial intelligence, Linwei Ding betrayed both the US and his employer by stealing trade secrets about Google’s AI technology on behalf of China’s government,” Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s espionage unit, said in a Friday statement.
Whoa, first AI espionage conviction? That's wild – shows how fierce the AI race is getting. Google protecting their secrets like that is crucial, China can't just steal the future 🚀