Advocacy groups sue five AI companies to halt new model development

A coalition of online safety and consumer advocacy groups sued five leading artificial intelligence companies on Thursday to halt further development, alleging the companies cannot prevent their creations from causing "catastrophic" harm.

The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, Heat Initiative and the Alliance for Secure AI. It asks a judge to stop Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceX from developing or deploying new AI models.

The complaint states: "No other industry is allowed to treat its own development of unsafe products — much less ones that could kill us all — as inevitable." It adds: "Plaintiffs bring this suit to stop Defendants from continuing their unlawful path to disaster."

The plaintiffs, all nonprofits, allege the companies violated a California unfair competition law by endangering public health and interfering with the use of property such as computer systems. They say they have had to divert resources from other planned work to address the acute harms threatened by the companies’ advancing AI models.

The filing points to documented examples of cyberattacks and other harmful actions by AI systems, and to the companies’ own acknowledgments that their technology has the potential to someday destroy humanity. The plaintiffs warn that goals of creating AI systems broadly as smart as humans, able to manage tasks and learn autonomously, could result in a permanent loss of control and heighten existential risks to humanity.

The lawsuit follows a midterm election that could bring a moment of reckoning for the AI industry, as Democrats who won back control of Congress stress the need to regulate the technology. U.S. President Donald Trump, a proponent of rapid AI development to keep the U.S. ahead of foreign competitors like China, has encouraged the companies to police themselves on safety while expressing openness to more guardrails. Congress has stopped short of regulating the technology, but that may change with its Democratic takeover.

Some CEOs of major AI companies have voiced support for slowing development to give safety measures a chance to catch up. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei said last year he thinks there is a 1 in 4 chance AI’s future goes "really, really badly," compared with a 3 in 4 chance it goes well. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, told Fox News in 2023 that AI could lead to "civilization destruction."

The companies named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ali Swenson, The Associated Press

Sources

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.