OpenAI Asks Congress Whether Coordinating an Industry-Wide AI Slowdown Would Be Legal
nordicinst · x · 2026-09-11
WIRED reports that OpenAI has asked members of Congress for guidance on whether orchestrating an industry-wide slowdown of frontier AI development would be legal. The concern: substantive safety coordination between labs could collide with antitrust law, a major obstacle to getting tech giants on board.
- Chief scientist Jakub Pachocki argued in a blog post that "coordinating to slow down future development" is key to keeping self-improving AI safe, with voluntary slowdowns becoming commonplace until shared safety bars exist.
- Legal scholar Nicholas Felstead argued a coordinated pause could amount to restricting output under the Sherman Antitrust Act, and that legal uncertainty alone is a powerful deterrent.
- Congress has shown early signs of engagement, with bipartisan action in July.
Related event: OpenAI Urges Congress to Pass Mandatory AI Safety Legislation(6 posts)→
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