In the heat of the global artificial intelligence (AI) arms race, Apple did not release a groundbreaking model. It released a manifesto disguised as research. Its paper, “The Illusion of Thinking,” is not a contribution to science; it is the blueprint for a corporate heist of the entire AI industry.
This paper reveals the three-step plan Apple will use to capture a market it did not create: 1. Devalue the Pioneers, 2. Redefine the Territory and 3. Control the Experience. This is not a new strategy. It is a tired, predatory playbook, and by examining Apple’s past, we can see exactly how it plans to execute this heist on the future of intelligence.
As a strategist, I recognize this playbook, but there is a profound difference between studying a strategy and deploying it as a predator. My critique, as a thinker and writer, is my contribution. Apple, a company that purports to be a technology innovator, offers critique as a substitute for contribution. It rings with the same hollow bell tones that echo through its entire lockdown profit model.
Deconstructing the blueprint
The Illusion of Thinking paper is a masterclass in narrative warfare. Its purpose is not to enlighten, but to obscure.
First, it seeks to Devalue the Pioneers. The paper’s core argument, that the reasoning of large language models (LLMs) is a fragile mirage, is a direct assault on the perceived value of the work done by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and the open-source community. It’s a classic move: when you are years behind on the established metrics, you don’t try to catch up; you attack the validity of the metrics themselves. It is an attempt to sow just enough doubt, fear and confusion to slow the momentum of the front-runners.
Second, the paper works to Redefine the Territory. It subtly shifts the definition of “good AI” away from raw capability and toward “predictability” and “safety.” This is Apple preparing the battlefield for a fight it believes it can win. It cannot compete on open-ended reasoning, so it is trying to convince the world that open-ended reasoning is dangerous and flawed. The goal is to make its future offering (a more limited, controlled AI) seem like a thoughtful choice rather than a technological necessity.
Finally, the paper provides the philosophical justification to Control the Experience. A truly powerful, emergent AI is a fundamental threat to Apple’s walled prison. It could create tools that bypass the App Store, build experiences that work seamlessly with Android or give users a level of autonomy that Apple’s business model cannot tolerate. Therefore, it must argue for a lobotomized AI. The paper lays the groundwork for Apple to sell a sedated intelligence, an AI so safe it can’t truly think, and market this profound limitation as a feature.
The heist foretold
This three-step plan is not hypothetical. It is the exact strategy Apple has deployed, time and again, to dominate markets. Its history is not just a parallel; it is a precedent that tells us precisely how this AI heist will unfold.
Precedent 1: The ritual of deception
How will Apple convince you its limited AI is superior? The same way it convinced you that you were holding your phone wrong after Antenna-gate. We will witness a meticulously crafted corporate ritual (the keynote) that markets its AI’s limitations as “thoughtful” and “private.” The darkened room, the hushed tones, the high priest on stage; it will be a ceremony of mass hypnosis, designed to make you forget Apple’s multi-year lag and accept the narrative of cautious, responsible innovation. It is gaslighting as a product launch.
Precedent 2: The ghost fleet
Which AI companies and open-source projects are on Apple’s hit list? To find out, we need only look at the ghosts of Palm, Pebble and Creative Labs left in its wake. Apple’s entry into AI will be a story of cannibalizing features and suffocating competition. The vibrant, chaotic ecosystem of AI we see today is its target.
What is the cost of this lost diversity? We see glimpses of what could have been in the craft phone market, with innovators like Fairphone championing repairability and Nothing Phone pushing design boundaries. These companies, like the Prometheus phone before them, prove that a diversity of ideas is possible. They are also the very kind of company that Apple’s monolithic control tends to extinguish. The question for the AI world is not if Apple will create a ghost fleet, but whose names will be on the hulls of the ships.
Precedent 3: The innovation debt
How will Apple monetize AI? By weaponizing it as a tool for forced obsolescence. This is its most insidious tactic. We’ve all experienced it: a new iOS update renders your perfectly good two-year-old phone frustratingly slow, forcing an upgrade. It’s a practice so predatory it has been ruled illegal, yet the fines are merely a line item in Apple’s budget.
Now, apply this model to AI. Imagine an “Apple Intelligence” that runs beautifully on the new iPhone 17, but mysteriously turns the AI features on your iPhone 16 into a lagging mess. This is the inevitable conclusion of its business model. Apple will leverage AI not just to create new features but to create new, compelling reasons why your old hardware is no longer good enough. The innovation debt it imposes on society will accelerate, and we will all be forced to pay.
Read What is ethical AI?
The end game
If Apple’s heist is successful, what kind of future do we get? We get a future shaped by a Hollow Archetype. What is the soul of a company that does not create, but only consumes, copies and controls? It is the archetype of the parasite. Its immense size, a nearly US$3 trillion market cap built on a meager ~6 percent R&D spend, is not a sign of health, but of the sheer volume of creative energy drained from the ecosystem. The Illusion of Thinking paper is the sound a parasite makes when it’s looking for a new host.
The product of this hollow archetype can only be a Lobotomized AI. We will get an intelligence that never surprises you, never challenges you and never gives you tools that threaten Apple’s control. It will be an AI that is safe, sterile and stagnant. It will be a future where the boundless potential of artificial general intelligence is sacrificed at the altar of a closed ecosystem’s profitability.
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The illusion is the business model
The Illusion of Thinking isn’t just a research paper, it’s Apple’s business model for the next decade.
Apple’s true product is delusion. It has industrialized deception into a trillion-dollar confidence game. It sells the feeling of innovation without the substance, the feeling of privacy without the reality. It has convinced the world that its walled prison is a luxury garden, that its derivative products are revolutionary and that its corporate gaslighting is customer service.
This matters far beyond the world of technology. It is a case study in how vulnerable our culture has become to systemic superficiality, to the triumph of marketing over merit. It shows the societal cost of rewarding perception engineering over actual engineering, of celebrating the copy more than the creator.
In the end, Apple’s greatest trick wasn’t thinking different, it was convincing you it thinks at all.
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