Suing Big Tech to stop runaway AI

 suing Big Tech to stop runaway AI

• Public Citizen 

  citizen.org

  From:president@citizen.org

  
  

  To:m.mk@...

  Thu, Nov 12 at 2:42 PM

  We have a brand new lawsuit to tell you about, and it’s a doozy.
  
  Earlier today, Public Citizen with allies filed a lawsuit against five leading “artificial intelligence” companies — Anthropic, Google, Meta (a.k.a. Facebook), OpenAI, and SpaceX Super Intelligence (owned by Elon Musk) — to stop them from continuing to release products that they themselves admit are wildly dangerous.
  
  Here’s more about this major case:
  

  • AI experts — including the leaders of the very companies we’re suing — have warned that advanced AI systems pose imminent and catastrophic risks to humanity.

  • Even leaving aside some of the CEO’s most grandiose claims, advanced AI systems — as detailed in our suit — have already bypassed safeguards, accessed outside computer systems without authorization, empowered terrorists, and taken harmful actions their developers did not intend.

  • Some of these attacks included AI agents hacking private companies, gaining unauthorized access to government databases, and submitting a false police report — all while acting without human control.

  • This lawsuit — brought by Public Citizen, Irreplaceable Education Fund, Heat Initiative, and the Alliance for Secure AI — asserts that halting further advancement of AI systems is necessary to protect public safety and to preserve humankind’s ability to decide for itself how this technology shapes our future.

  • As former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who is representing us in this case, noted when we announced the lawsuit, “It is patently illegal for companies to develop and release products they know are unsafe in any respect, let alone have the potential to exterminate the human race.”

  • AI companies should not be permitted to work on or release AI systems that their executives admit they do not understand and that can cause devastating and irreversible harm, such as enabling widespread cyberattacks or the creation of bioweapons.

  • These Big Tech titans — Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI, and SpaceXSI — must be forced to pause development of the most dangerous AI systems until enforceable safety standards are in place.

  Here’s what one of us (Robert) said to the national media:
  
  “Despite endless warnings about the grave risks their products pose to public safety and even civilization itself, AI company executives are rushing to develop and deploy ever-more advanced AI systems. We the People should not simply stand by and tolerate AI executives’ unhinged risk-taking at the public’s expense. Our lawsuit asks the court to apply existing law and find the AI corporations’ reckless practices unlawful and freeze further AI development.”
  
  We will continue using litigation to confront Big Tech companies and other giant corporations, just as we use litigation to take on the Trump regime (with 55 suits, and counting, that we have filed against the administration since Donald Trump returned to power).
  
  
  
  If you’ve donated to Public Citizen before, thank you. If a donation is not right, we understand. Either way, thank you for being part of Public Citizen.
  
  For justice,
  
  - Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
  
  
  Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009