Apple raises new concerns around clawing back trade secrets from an AI

In a recent legal filing, Apple has expressed concerns over the potential for trade secrets to be irreversibly utilized by AI systems. Abdul Saboor/Reuters reports that Apple is suing OpenAI for the alleged misuse of its trade secrets by a former employee. Apple's legal team argues that feeding trade secrets into an AI agent or model could result in an irreversible and continuously propagating use of that information. While legal remedies exist, the technical solution could be complex, according to industry experts.

This issue poses a new challenge for companies, as employees often carry knowledge in their heads and now feed it into AI systems, creating a loss of control. Apple's concerns stem from a former employee's use of company secrets while employed by OpenAI and the use of AI agents to run simulations. The potential harm caused by competitors accessing these secrets is not new, but the introduction of artificial intelligence adds a new layer of complexity, according to Camilla Hrdy, a law professor at Rutgers.

Potential remedies for these cases include instructing a company to cease using the trade secrets, not disclosing any secrets, and implementing protective measures. Additionally, assessing damages, such as actual losses incurred from losing those secrets or paying royalties to the affected company, is also a possibility. For AI systems specifically, stopping trade-secret use by a rival company might require deleting the file containing sensitive information or building a detection system to flag sensitive user requests or information being passed between agents.