OpenAI Wants to Know if an AI Industry Slowdown Would Even Be Legal

AI leaders worry antitrust law could stand in the way of what they view as an increasingly urgent push to coordinate a slowdown in AI development. OpenAI has asked members of Congress in recent weeks for clear guidance about whether orchestrating an industry-wide slowdown on frontier AI development would be legal, people close to the company tell WIRED. Substantive coordination on safety between AI labs may risk running afoul of antitrust law, the people say, which poses a significant obstacle to bringing major tech giants on board with the effort. Last weekend, OpenAI's chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, published a blog post arguing that the best path forward for the AI research world includes "coordinating to slow down future development," which he thinks will be key to ensuring that self-improving AI systems are safe. In the short term, he expects " voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established."