Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown
A class-action lawsuit alleges that major AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, engaged in an illegal antitrust agreement to slow down AI development. The plaintiffs argue this coordination harms consumers by limiting competition and innovation.
Why it matters
This case challenges the industry-wide push for 'AI safety' by framing it as a potential cover for anti-competitive behavior among tech giants.
A new lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.
The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions.
The coordination largely took place on September 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favour of enhanced safety measures.
That same day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind's co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei's proposals in agreement.
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