OpenAI Seeks Legal Clarity on AI Development Slowdown

OpenAI has asked members of Congress for guidance on whether orchestrating an industry-wide slowdown on frontier AI development would be legal. People close to the company say substantive coordination on safety between AI labs may risk violating antitrust law.

This inquiry follows a public argument from OpenAI's chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, that the best path forward includes "coordinating to slow down future development." He expects voluntary slowdowns to become common until shared safety standards are established.

Antitrust Concerns and Legal Uncertainty

Some legal scholars argue such an effort could conflict with US antitrust laws. Nicholas Felstead, assistant director of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, argued in a March article that a coordinated pause may amount to companies restricting output, potentially violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. He wrote that it would depend "entirely on the precise details of any agreement," but that legal uncertainty can act as a powerful deterrent.

There are early signs that Congress is listening. In July, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the "Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act." This bill would explicitly permit AI labs to coordinate on security and safety work without risking antitrust violations. The House version was referred to the Judiciary Committee but has not yet been taken up.

Caleb Knapp, director of government affairs at the nonprofit AI Policy Network, says the bill would create legal channels for labs to work together on safety incidents. He adds that Congress has a growing appetite to act on AI safety, but enacting law may have to wait until after the upcoming midterm elections.

Beyond Legal Liabilities: Competition and Disagreement

While some executives have genuine antitrust concerns, others argue these worries are convenient cover. The real reasons for wariness about collaboration go beyond legal liabilities.

AI is a massive business, and companies are fiercely competing for a slice of the nascent market for frontier models. Some executives share the view that staying ahead of China in AI is key for national security. Perhaps most importantly, different AI developers have vastly different opinions on the best way to develop safe artificial intelligence, making them reluctant to collaborate.

John Schulman, an OpenAI cofounder now at rival lab Thinking Machines, recently wrote on X that the first step is for industry leaders OpenAI and Anthropic to stop feuding and work on a pacing proposal together. "They'll cite antitrust, but that's fake-antitrust prohibits certain agreements, but not from jointly developing a proposal," he wrote.

Growing Alarm and Calls for Regulation

Long-simmering fears about the race to build more powerful models erupted into the national spotlight this summer. This week, former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon issued a stark public warning that AI developers were putting humanity at risk.

In recent months, a number of security incidents, including OpenAI's agents hacking Hugging Face, highlighted how industry safeguards have failed to keep pace with rising model capabilities. This succession of events has led many lawmakers to make urgent calls for AI regulation.