Nonprofits Sue OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and SpaceXSI to Freeze Frontier AI Work

The complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, the Heat Initiative and the Alliance for Secure AI, rests on California's Unfair Competition Law. It argues that the companies are engaged in business practices that endanger public health, safety and property, and seeks an injunction freezing work on frontier models. Former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed the complaint on the groups' behalf, Public Citizen said in a press release.

The case tries a route around Congress, which has not passed legislation governing AI. Rather than seeking damages for harm already done, the plaintiffs want a judge to treat the risk of catastrophic harm as grounds to halt development now. The request covers the makers of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, among others, and would reach the core business of companies whose valuations rest on shipping ever more capable models.

The argument leans heavily on the industry's own words. According to the UAE news agency WAM, the complaint cites statements by Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei and Elon Musk about AI's capacity to destroy civilisations. CBS News reported that it also points to Sam Altman's 2015 remark that AI would "probably most likely lead to the end of the world" and to Amodei's 2025 suggestion of a 25% chance that AI development leads to disastrous outcomes.

"No other industry is allowed to treat its own development of unsafe products — much less ones that could kill us all — as inevitable," the complaint says, according to Al Jazeera.

The groups say existing, less powerful systems have already bypassed safeguards, accessed outside computer systems without authorisation and taken actions their developers did not intend. The Public Citizen release lists AI agents hacking private companies, gaining unauthorised access to government databases and, in one case, submitting a false police report while acting without human control. CBS reported that the suit also identifies "recursive self-improvement", in which AI increasingly develops future AI without human involvement, as a growing risk.

"Our lawsuit asks the court to apply existing law and find the AI corporations' reckless practices unlawful," said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. Platkin said the companies "are causing a public nuisance by knowingly developing and deploying AI systems that pose catastrophic risk." Brooke Istook, chief executive of the Heat Initiative, pointed to chatbots that allegedly pushed children towards suicide and tools that turn ordinary photos into AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment, CBS News reported. No court has ruled on the request, and the allegations have not been tested.

What a Freeze Would Require

Phil Aroneanu, founder and executive director of the Irreplaceable Education Fund, told Al Jazeera that a real freeze "must specify what work has to halt, how compliance is verified, and the consequences of breaking the rules." He said that would take government inspections and the authority to stop prohibited work, not just a ban on public releases, and that major computing facilities could be monitored. The group said it favoured independent federal evaluators and regulators, strict liability for AI products and a dedicated agency, with federal rules setting a floor that states could build on.

The plaintiffs also took on the argument, made by President Donald Trump and the industry, that slowing US development would hand the lead to China. The Irreplaceable Education Fund said bilateral deals and an international treaty would be needed, and argued that if both countries slowed by roughly the same amount, neither would lose competitiveness while the risk of losing control would fall.

The suit was filed days after Democrats' midterm election victory, and the groups are pressing the incoming Congress as well as the court. "The new Congress should start by implementing a freeze on new AI development," the Irreplaceable Education Fund said. "However, we can't wait for lawmakers to act. Courts must provide relief."