Nonprofits sue tech giants in California to halt AI development, seek emergency freeze on new models

A coalition of digital safety and consumer watchdogs has filed a lawsuit against the world's top artificial intelligence (AI) developers, requesting a court-ordered freeze on AI model training and deployments.

The civil complaint was filed on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court by the Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, Heat Initiative and the Alliance for Secure AI.

The suit targets five tech giants — Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceX — alleging the industry leaders cannot prevent their AI creations from causing 'catastrophic harm'. The plaintiffs are demanding the companies pause their technologies until safeguards are put in place.

The nonprofits are seeking an immediate emergency injunction on next-generation models from the major firms, and are demanding the companies only be allowed to resume operations once they can prove the technology is under human control.

'No other industry is allowed to treat its own development of unsafe products — much less ones that could kill us all — as inevitable,' the complaint reads. 'Plaintiffs bring this suit to stop Defendants from continuing their unlawful path to disaster.'

The plaintiffs claim the companies have violated a California unfair competition law by endangering public health and interfering with the use of property, such as computer systems. The law prohibits deceptive advertising, anti-competitive market behaviours and bait-and-switch tactics.

The advocacy groups also report having to divert resources to counter 'near-daily crises' from the companies' rapidly advancing AI models.

One of the four plaintiffs, the New York-based Irreplaceable Education Fund, told Al Jazeera it is demanding government regulation of AI development. 'A real freeze must specify what work has to halt, how compliance is verified, and the consequences of breaking the rules,' said Phil Aroneanu, the fund's founder and executive director.

Aroneanu added that enforcing such a freeze requires government inspections and the authority to halt prohibited work, not just a ban on publicly releasing the models, and that major computing facilities can be monitored to help enforce it.

Pressed on what statutory guardrails they hope to establish, the group outlined a multi-tiered system of oversight: AI development conditioned on a 'deliberate, considered decision informed by the general public', with proposals including federal independent evaluators and regulators, strict liability for tech companies and their products, and an independent agency to regulate them.

Federal law, the group stated, should establish minimum protections while preserving states' authority to adopt and enforce stronger measures.

While the lawsuit targets AI firms in a California courtroom, the plaintiffs argue that pausing domestic development will not hand a victory to tech rivals, notably China, provided Washington sets global rules and starts talks with Beijing. AI firms and US President Donald Trump have repeatedly signalled the US is racing full throttle to beat Beijing in AI development.

'An international treaty will be needed to ensure that we can reduce the negative impacts of AI and prevent catastrophe,' the Irreplaceable Education Fund said in a statement to Al Jazeera. 'If both sides are slowed by roughly the same factor, while the risk of losing control of our AIs is reduced, then this does not really harm the US or China's AI competitiveness, but it makes us all safer.'

The argument confronts Trump's longstanding resistance to slowing down AI: the fear that any unilateral restraint shown by Washington would allow Beijing to set the path in global AI development. The president, a proponent of rapid AI expansion, has previously said it was important to continue leading the evolution of AI over China, because 'whoever wins AI wins'.

Despite years of warnings, Congress has yet to pass legislation governing AI, the plaintiffs noted. 'Every day these companies race forward towards super-intelligent AI is another day that more people and more critical infrastructure are put at risk,' the plaintiffs said.

They are now hoping incoming Democratic lawmakers will heed their calls. 'The new Congress should start by implementing a freeze on new AI development,' the organisation said. 'However, we can't wait for lawmakers to act. Courts must provide relief.'