Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google face antitrust lawsuit over AI slowdown

MUMBAI: Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google are facing an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the companies reached an agreement to collectively slow the pace of artificial intelligence development, according to the Associated Press.

The lawsuit was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs allege that the companies’ coordination violates antitrust laws and could reduce the value consumers receive from paid AI subscriptions.

Four named plaintiffs, who subscribe to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini, are seeking to represent a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to the services.

The complaint centres on events on 12 September, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling for greater cooperation across the AI industry to moderate the pace of technological advancement and give safety measures more time to develop.

In the essay, titled We Must Pace the Frontier, Amodei proposed a three-stage framework involving independent oversight of AI companies, coordination among firms in democratic countries and broader international cooperation.

Amodei clarified that the proposal was not intended to stop AI research or model training, but to create more time for safeguards to keep pace with technological progress.

According to the lawsuit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis publicly responded to Amodei’s proposals on the same day and expressed agreement with the broader approach.

The plaintiffs argue that an understanding among major AI competitors to develop their technologies more slowly than market competition would otherwise lead to could have an anticompetitive effect on consumers.

Amodei’s proposal itself acknowledged that coordination between competing AI laboratories could raise antitrust concerns. He suggested that the US government could mediate or facilitate discussions between companies and potentially provide a limited waiver for certain safety-related conversations.

Altman, responding to the proposal, said OpenAI supported a federal framework establishing consistent safety requirements. He also said the company did not believe it needed to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation before pursuing measures aimed at improving confidence around AI safety.

The lawsuit has brought a competition dimension to an ongoing debate among leading AI companies over how to manage risks associated with increasingly capable systems.

The plaintiffs, however, contend that private coordination between competing companies to slow technological development raises separate antitrust concerns. The allegations in the lawsuit have not been established in court.