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

A new lawsuit alleges that Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google conspired to intentionally slow down their respective AI development, potentially reducing the value consumers receive for paid subscriptions. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims the companies made an illegal agreement to coordinate slower advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures.

The plaintiffs argue that this collusion would have an anticompetitive effect on consumers, potentially leading to AI systems that could pose significant risks to humanity. According to the lead attorney, Nick Rowley, allowing private "for profit" technology companies to control AI safety and protocols through self-serving agreements is a major concern.

The lawsuit was filed on September 12, the same day that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling for industrywide cooperation on decelerating AI advancements. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei's proposals, agreeing to the proposed slowdown.

The plaintiffs, who include four individuals paying for subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or Gemini, are seeking to represent a nationwide class of other paid subscribers to these services.