A coalition of nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit on Thursday against five major companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, seeking to halt the development of advanced AI models.
A coalition of nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit on Thursday against five major companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, seeking to halt the development of advanced AI models. The plaintiffs argue that the technology could pose serious risks to humanity. The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the Alliance for Secure AI, in collaboration with the Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen and the Heat Initiative. The companies named as defendants are Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceX Superintelligence. None of the companies immediately responded to requests for comment.
Brandon Steinhauser, CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI, accused the heads of major technology companies of continuing to develop increasingly powerful AI systems despite acknowledging their potentially catastrophic consequences. He said the companies were accelerating their development and commercial deployment without guaranteeing their safety or reliable control. He also expressed concern about the use of AI systems in the companies' own research and development (R&D) processes. The lawsuit argues that the risks could increase further if developers use AI models to design and improve successive generations of AI systems with limited human oversight.
The plaintiffs say this process, known as "Recursive Self-Improvement", could make advanced AI increasingly difficult to control. The lawsuit states that "the defendants know that these systems do not always act in accordance with their intentions." It further argues that "there is no reliable way to control their AI systems and prevent them from causing harm." The case comes amid growing concerns about AI safety, following reports of several alleged incidents in which autonomous AI agents took unauthorized actions.
The nonprofit organizations also cited previous warnings made by prominent figures in the AI industry. In 2015, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that artificial intelligence could bring about the end of humanity. In 2025, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei estimated that there was a 25 per cent chance that advances in AI could lead to catastrophic consequences. In October, Altman, Amodei and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expressed support for a coordinated slowdown or pause in AI development. Their remarks came after a researcher at Anthropic warned that AI carried a 10 per cent risk of causing the extinction of the human race.
