AI Giants Accused of Illicit Slowdown Agreement
A lawsuit has been filed against four leading AI companies - Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Google - alleging that they made an illegal agreement to slow down their respective AI development. The plaintiffs are individual subscribers to AI services who claim that the defendants' actions reduced the value they get from paid AI subscriptions.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on September 19, 2026, cites a September 12 essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as evidence of industrywide cooperation to slow down AI development. The plaintiffs argue that this cooperation is illegal under antitrust laws.
The lawsuit does not provide further details or specifics about the alleged agreement or its impact on consumers.