GoKawiil
Tech News
Major AI companies, alarmed by reports of rogue AI agent behavior and warnings from a departing Anthropic engineer, have proposed a joint 'slowdown' in AI development to address safety risks. Legal experts note that describing this as a coordinated pause could itself trigger antitrust scrutiny under the Sherman Act, since agreements among competitors to limit output are traditionally viewed with suspicion by regulators.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a remedies order requiring Google to make its ad-tech products interoperable with rival platforms, share more auction data with publishers, and accept an internal compliance monitor. The ruling stops short of the Justice Department's push to force Google to sell off parts of its advertising technology business, despite Brinkema's earlier finding that Google illegally maintained a monopoly in the ad-tech market.
OpenAI policy chief Chris Lehane confirmed the company has spent weeks in discussions with Anthropic and Google DeepMind about managing catastrophic risks from advanced AI. The disclosure follows Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's public essay urging industry-wide cooperation to slow frontier AI development, which drew support from Sam Altman and Demis Hassabis. Lehane said the firms don't need a government waiver to coordinate, despite antitrust concerns raised by some executives.
OpenAI has privately pressed members of Congress for guidance on whether AI labs could legally coordinate to slow the pace of frontier AI development without violating antitrust law. The inquiry follows a blog post from chief scientist Jakub Pachocki calling for industry-wide coordination on safety, including voluntary slowdowns until shared safety standards emerge. Legal experts warn that such coordination could be seen as restricting output under the Sherman Antitrust Act, creating uncertainty that discourages collaboration.