US lawsuit accuses OpenAI, Google and rivals of slowing AI development

Paid subscribers have sued Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI, alleging an illegal pact to slow AI development. The case pushes the clash over safety, competition and regulation into a US court.

In Short

• Four paid subscribers filed the case for a proposed nationwide class
• Plaintiffs say safety coordination reduced service value for paying customers
• Amodei sought government-backed talks, while Altman welcomed a federal safety framework

A new lawsuit in the US has accused Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google of making an illegal deal to slow the pace of their AI development, saying such coordination hurts consumers who pay for AI subscriptions.

The case, filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, says the companies violated antitrust laws by agreeing to coordinate efforts to slow development in the name of safety. The plaintiffs argue this would reduce the value paid subscribers get from services such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini.

The lawsuit says the coordination largely took place on September 12, when Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay calling for industry-wide cooperation to decelerate AI advances in favour of stronger safety measures. The same day, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, SpaceXAI chief executive Elon Musk and Google DeepMind co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly responded in support of Amodei's proposals.

The plaintiffs say it is clear that an agreement among major AI rivals that progress "should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers". Lawyers for four named plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini, have filed the suit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to those services.

"AI will quickly spin out of human control and could kill us all if we allow AI safety and protocol ... to be controlled by private self-serving agreements between the world's most powerful for-profit technology companies," said Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. Representatives for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

In his original essay, Amodei acknowledged possible antitrust issues and wrote that it would help if the US government mediated "or at least enable" such discussions across AI labs. He said the government would not need to take part directly, but would need to "issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations". In response, Altman said on social media that OpenAI welcomed the idea of a "federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements", but added, "we do not believe we need to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence."

The article said recent discussions on slowing development were driven by growing concerns that AI could evade human control, though several leaders in the field have for some time spoken about shared standards and coordination to keep safety at the centre of development. The plaintiffs said they were not opposed to AI companies asking Congress, the White House or other agencies to develop regulation, and were also not against the companies seeking an antitrust exemption.

But the report said such collaboration with the federal government could be difficult. President Donald Trump rejected calls for regulation on social media, calling efforts to limit the technology part of a "conspiracy". He questioned why industry leaders would seek regulation that, he said, "if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy." Trump said on Saturday that he was forming an AI task force and would appoint an "AI czar", but did not give details.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said it wants American AI labs to move faster and stay ahead of Chinese competition. While several Democratic leaders and candidates have pushed for broad AI regulation, Republicans have largely echoed Trump's stand. At a recent Senate hearing, Senator Josh Hawley said there is "no world" in which he would support giving "the most powerful companies in the history of the world" an exemption from antitrust laws, arguing they could collude and stifle competition. The lawsuit now brings that wider debate over AI safety, competition and regulation before a US court.

With PTI Inputs

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