A coalition of four nonprofits, the Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, Heat Initiative and the Alliance for Secure AI, filed a civil complaint in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday against Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceX. The suit seeks an immediate emergency injunction freezing training and deployment of next-generation AI models, with work allowed to resume only once the companies can prove the technology is under human control and safeguards are in place.
The plaintiffs argue the companies cannot prevent their systems from causing catastrophic harm, cite documented AI-driven cyberattacks and the companies’ own statements about loss-of-control risk, and claim a violation of California’s unfair competition law by endangering public health and interfering with the use of property such as computer systems. Phil Aroneanu, founder of the Irreplaceable Education Fund, told Al Jazeera a real freeze would need specified halted work, verified compliance and government inspection authority. No response from any defendant company was reported.