Advocacy groups sue five AI firms to halt new models

Four advocacy groups filed a lawsuit on November 12 in San Francisco Superior Court seeking to stop Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceXSI from developing or deploying new AI models. The complaint alleges that the companies’ work violates California’s Unfair Competition Law and asks a judge to order a halt; no ruling has been reported.

The plaintiffs are the Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, Heat Initiative and the Alliance for Secure AI. They say increasingly capable and autonomous systems could escape human control, endanger public health and interfere with property, including computer systems. The groups also allege they have diverted resources from other work to address harms associated with the companies’ AI development.

The requested order concerns future models, not a suspension of existing chatbot products or subscriptions. The lawsuit’s filing does not itself restrict development or deployment. Whether the court will grant the requested injunction remains undecided.

In support of their case, the groups cite reported incidents involving AI agents and computer systems, as well as warnings from technology leaders about potential risks from more powerful...