A coordinated slowdown by leading AI companies could breach US competition law even when its stated purpose is safety, legal scholars Amelia Miazad, Barak Orbach and Menesh Patel argue in an analysis published on October 5. They distinguish a blanket agreement to hold back innovation from joint work on specific risks, whose legality depends on its terms and effects. Their intervention follows executives’ calls for a slower pace of development. It offers a fresh complication for promises to protect the public. Companies cannot simply decide among themselves that their preferred pace should bind the market. The analysis is an interpretation of existing law, rather than a court ruling on a particular agreement.

Smaller developers would have to operate under any shared standard that customers began demanding. If established firms set the tests and controlled access to evaluation, they could make entry expensive while presenting the barrier as a public service. Conversely, leaving each company to assess its own products would give users little assurance that the tests were comparable. Safety cooperation needs a way for outsiders to challenge a failed evaluation or a rule that favors an incumbent. A subscription buyer cannot inspect a model’s development calendar, and a worker exposed to its use may have no contract with its maker. Public authorities should therefore be able to examine the proposed restrictions before companies make access depend on them.