OpenAI Asks Congress if AI Slowdown Coordination Is Legal

OpenAI has privately sought guidance from Congress on whether coordinating an industry-wide slowdown in frontier AI development would be legal, according to people close to the company. The concern centers on antitrust law — specifically, whether safety-based coordination between AI labs could constitute illegal output restriction under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki published a blog post last weekend calling for 'coordinating to slow down future development' as a key step toward ensuring safe self-improving AI systems, anticipating that 'voluntary slowdowns will become commonplace until shared safety bars are established.'

Nicholas Felstead, former AI policy fellow at the Center for Law & AI Risk, warned in a March article that a coordinated development pause could risk antitrust violations, though the outcome would depend 'entirely on the precise details of any agreement.' He noted that 'even if most safety collaborations would ultimately survive antitrust scrutiny, legal uncertainty can act as a powerful deterrent.'

In July, a bipartisan Congressional group introduced the Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act, which would explicitly allow AI labs to coordinate on safety without antitrust liability. The House version has been referred to the Judiciary Committee but has not yet advanced. Some critics argue antitrust concerns are a convenient cover for competitive reluctance and differing safety philosophies among AI developers.