AI giants such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are facing antitrust lawsuits, accused of colluding to slow down technological development.

Regulatory controversies surrounding the artificial intelligence industry are spreading from the policy level to the legal arena.

According to Politico, four plaintiffs filed a civil lawsuit last Friday in a California federal court, accusing Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google of violating U.S. antitrust laws by engaging in illegal business collusion by publicly coordinating to slow down the development of AI. None of the four companies immediately responded to requests for comment.

The lawsuit was immediately sparked by an article published earlier this month by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. The article called for "industry-wide coordination" to "control the pace of AI frontier development," which was subsequently endorsed publicly by SpaceX AI head Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis. The plaintiffs argue that these statements constitute an illegal business agreement between competitors. Once the case enters the substantive trial stage, it will have a profound impact on the competitive landscape and regulatory direction of the AI industry.

The core allegation in the lawsuit: Public statements were deemed illegal coordination.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Nick Rowley, one of the attorneys representing the company, stated in a statement that the case aims to prevent "private, self-serving agreements between the world's most powerful for-profit technology companies" from causing AI to "rapidly slip out of human control."

In a statement, Rowley said, "When it comes to annihilation threats like nuclear war, and the greatest risks in human history today, humanity deserves unquestionable safeguards. The rule of law should be established by governments in a transparent, legal manner, and accountable to the public."

The plaintiff's legal logic is that Dario Amodei's public appeal and the responses from other industry leaders constitute, in form, an agreement between competitors regarding business conduct, which crosses the red line of U.S. antitrust law—even if the statements are made in the name of public safety.

Plaintiff's composition: Lawyers and ordinary citizens joined forces.

The four plaintiffs come from diverse backgrounds. Attorney Cheyenne Hunt, who previously participated in exposing sexual misconduct allegations against former California Congressman Eric Swalwell and former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, has a certain public profile. The other two plaintiffs are Florida attorneys Charles Buist and Nick Spetsas, and the fourth plaintiff is California resident Christine Bullock.

The lawsuit documents show that the plaintiffs intend to expand the case into a class-action suit, representing all groups affected by the companies' decisions to slow down AI development. This intention suggests that the potential size of the claims could increase significantly, further amplifying the case's deterrent effect on the industry.

Safety controversies spark calls for slowdowns

This lawsuit comes against the backdrop of a heated debate in the field of AI security. Reportedly, current and former AI researchers have recently issued stern warnings, arguing that without sufficient safeguards, the continued development of AI technology could pose a potential existential threat to human survival. The aforementioned statements from industry leaders regarding slowing down their efforts emerge in this context.

However, this lawsuit places this security discussion within an antitrust framework, creating a drastically different legal narrative: the plaintiffs are not questioning the security risks of AI itself, but rather arguing that, regardless of motivation, coordinated actions between competitors should not be outside the bounds of legal oversight. The plaintiffs emphasize in their complaint that the formulation of relevant rules should be transparently pursued through government procedures, rather than being privately driven by companies.

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