Lawsuit says AI giants made illegal deal on technology's slowdown

A new lawsuit alleges that Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google conspired to deliberately slow down their respective AI development in order to reduce subscription fees for consumers. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the suit claims the tech giants violated antitrust regulations with their coordinated efforts.

The alleged slowdown of AI advancements allegedly occurred on September 12, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for industry-wide cooperation to prioritize safety over rapid development. Amodei warned that unchecked AI could pose "rogue agents" threats within six months and suggested a three-point plan for cautious progress. His rivals, OpenAI's Sam Altman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, publicly affirmed the agreement on the same day.

Lawsuits allege that such private agreements between dominant technology companies undermine competition and put consumers' interests at risk. Four plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to AI services like ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini, are bringing the suit on behalf of all paid subscribers. The lead attorney warns that allowing AI development to be controlled by these private agreements could lead to AI spinning out of human control and potentially causing catastrophic consequences.