Paid subscribers of chatbots have filed an antitrust lawsuit against AI leaders
- Four subscribers have filed a lawsuit in California court.
- They accuse Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, and Google of collusion.
- The collusion is related to a call for a voluntary slowdown of AI.
- Trump has spoken out against the slowdown and plans 'AI forces'.
On Friday, a lawsuit was filed in the Northern District Court of California by four subscribers of paid chatbot services. The plaintiffs claim that major AI development companies — Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI (a subsidiary of SpaceX), and Google DeepMind — violated antitrust laws by coordinating actions that diminish the value of their paid services.
The court document indicates that a key moment of coordination occurred on September 12, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling for all market players to voluntarily slow down AI development for public safety reasons. On the same day, the leaders of OpenAI, xAI, and DeepMind publicly supported this position, which the plaintiffs believe indicates coordinated action.
The plaintiffs also refer to earlier contacts: in July, several AI development companies approached the US government with a proposal to create a global initiative aimed at slowing down progress in automated systems. According to them, such appeals confirm the existence of prior coordination.
Legal assessment
According to lawyer Nico Rowley, collective efforts to limit AI development violate competition, although individual companies have the right to make independent decisions about the pace of development. He stated that leaving safety issues in private agreements could lead to uncontrolled growth of technologies, which poses a threat to society.
In Amodei's essay, he also suggested that the US government initiate negotiations among market participants, and OpenAI's head Sam Altman supported the idea of creating federal regulations governing AI safety, but noted that he does not see the need to wait for approval from antitrust authorities.
The plaintiffs emphasize that they are not opposed to turning to federal agencies for the development of regulations and do not object to obtaining official approval for coordinated actions, provided such actions are approved by regulators.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken out against the intentional slowing of AI, fearing that it will weaken the position of American developers in competition with China. He also announced plans to create national 'AI forces' led by a so-called 'AI czar' who will be responsible for the strategic development of technologies.
The lawsuit is just beginning, and its outcome could determine how much companies can collaboratively influence the pace of artificial intelligence development without violating competition laws.
Source: 3DNews
