AI Slowdown Row: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI Face US Antitrust Lawsuit

On September 18, the suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California which alleges that the top AI companies agreed to coordinate their slowdowns, which would diminish the value offered to consumers for paying for AI services.

A central question in the case is whether there was coordination among the rivals, or “coordinated” decisions made by them.

The plaintiffs argue that people would be paying for more advanced AI tools, and they might not be getting as much for their money if the AI makers collectively slow the pace of innovation for their products.

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That argument puts the concern of companies' safety in competition law. As AI systems grew more powerful, the safeguards and standards discussed by AI developers are becoming commonplace, but the lawsuit claims that it is not something that competitors can agree on behind the scenes in order to lessen competitive pressure.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei admitted the potential antitrust concern himself when he proposed that the federal government could take a hands-on role in having narrowly defined safety discussions between AI labs.

The coordination largely took place on September 12, the lawsuit argues, when Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures.

The same day, the three, Sam Altman (OpenAI), Elon Musk (SpaceXAI) and Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), all publicly stated their assent to Amodei's offers.

It’s clear that an agreement among the chief rivals in AI that their progress “should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers,” the plaintiffs argue.

Four named plaintiffs, who pay for access to the subscription service for ChatGPT or Claude, Grok or Gemini, are bringing the lawsuit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to the service.

“AI will soon be beyond our control and if AI safety and protocol are left to private, self-serving deals between the world's most powerful 'for profit' tech firms, we will die,” said Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

A spokesperson for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI said it could not immediately comment.

Amodei's first essay on the slowdown had some concerns about antitrust issues, noting that it would be “useful” if the U.S. government could help mediate “or at least facilitate” the cross-lab deliberations.

The government would not have to get involved, he wrote, but it would have to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.”

Responding to that, Altman posted on social media that OpenAI is open to a “federal framework that establishes consistent safety requirements” but that “we do not believe we need to wait for an anti-trust exemption or legislation to get started on giving this confidence to people.”

One issue in the dispute may be the difference between calling for a common government rule and an agreement among the competitors. The executives' open statements urged them to implement greater safety standards and establish a federal plan, and the plaintiffs describe the executives' actions as demonstrating that the companies had come together to slow development.

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The concept of common AI safety principles has gained momentum in the tech world. The suit is contesting whether those efforts went too far when they included companies that directly compete for subscribers, investment, talent and technological leadership, as well as the broader issue of how to work together on other trends and threats without undue harming of competition.

While the recent conversations about pacing development were spurred by increasing fears about AI evading human control, and the lack of accountability of AI tech companies, several leaders in the AI space have long talked about developing a shared set of safety standards. Until recently this concept has been ignored in the frenetic race for market share and the unregulated growth of AI infrastructure.

Trump did not comply with the regulatory demands of the platforms.Trump has ignored calls for regulation of social media. He says that if anyone tries to restrict the technology it is a “conspiracy.” He wondered how the industry leaders could be asking for a regulating system that if “strongly implemented”, will force them “into oblivion and bankruptcy”. On social media Saturday, Trump announced an AI task force and said that he will be appointing an “AI czar” but was vague in his descriptions.

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