Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown

A lawsuit alleges that Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google conspired to deliberately slow down their respective AI development in violation of antitrust laws. According to the plaintiffs, the coordinated slowdown would reduce the value consumers receive for paid AI subscriptions. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, with four named plaintiffs representing a proposed nationwide class of subscribers.

The alleged agreement took place on September 12 when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay advocating for industrywide cooperation to decelerate advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. OpenAI's Sam Altman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis each responded publicly in agreement. The plaintiffs argue that an agreement among the top AI rivals to slow their progress would have an anticompetitive effect on consumers.

Lead attorney Nick Rowley warns that allowing AI safety and protocol to be controlled by private agreements between powerful technology companies could lead to AI spinning out of human control and potentially causing catastrophic consequences. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and SpaceXAI have yet to respond to requests for comment. In his initial essay, Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust challenges but suggested that the US government could mediate or enable these cross-lab discussions.

OpenAI's Altman later stated that the company welcomes the idea of a federal framework setting consistent safety requirements but believes that such measures should not wait for anti-trust exemption or legislation. The lawsuit comes amid growing concerns about AI systems evading human control, but several leaders in the AI space have long discussed the need for a shared set of standards or coordinated safety efforts.