Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and two of its former engineers whom it accuses of having taken trade secrets when they left the company to work at the artificial intelligence startup. The complaint, filed before a federal court in California, alleges that the employees took technical documents about neural network architectures and optimization systems that they would now be using to develop OpenAI’s models. According to Apple, the plan was coordinated «from all levels» of the organization.
And why does this matter to those of us who don’t work in tech? Because Apple and OpenAI are two of the most influential companies in the world of artificial intelligence. On the one hand, Apple has spent years integrating AI into its devices —Siri, computational photography features or the new Apple Intelligence—. On the other, OpenAI is the creator of ChatGPT and GPT-5.6, the most advanced language model of the moment. That two giants like these face off in court not only affects their stock prices: it can change how artificial intelligence is developed in the coming years, especially if the case sets precedents about who owns what when an employee changes companies.
The lawsuit comes at a particularly delicate time for OpenAI, which has just launched GPT-5.6 Sol, its most powerful model to date, and is already under scrutiny from regulators in the United States and Europe. If Apple manages to prove that OpenAI used its trade secrets, it could obtain a court order freezing the use of those technologies, which would be an earthquake in the sector. For the rest of us, this legal battle is a reminder that, in the war to dominate artificial intelligence, you don’t only compete with better algorithms: you also compete with lawyers.
— Marta, for inteligencia intermitente.
