Major AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic cannot legally coordinate on safety standards or development pace due to the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits collusion. This legal barrier is a primary reason they are publicly calling for government involvement, as it would provide the necessary waiver to work together without facing antitrust litigation.

Leading AI labs, despite intense competition, are collaborating through the Frontier Model Forum to detect and prevent Chinese firms from creating imitation models. This rare alliance is driven by the shared existential threat that 'adversarial distillation' poses to their business models and to U.S. national security.

A major obstacle to coordinated AI safety efforts is the fear of antitrust litigation. Labs are reluctant to agree on pacing or sharing safety techniques because it could be viewed as illegal collusion. Zvi Mowshowitz suggests a simple government action would be to provide an explicit antitrust waiver for such collaborations.

Despite intense domestic rivalry, top US AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are collaborating to detect "adversarial distillation"—where Chinese firms copy their models. This rare cooperation shows the shared commercial and national security threat from foreign competitors outweighs their direct competition.

A significant barrier to voluntary safety pacts among AI companies is antitrust law. An agreement to slow development could be prosecuted as illegal anti-competitive collusion, as it would limit the technology available to consumers. This makes government-led frameworks essential for any coordinated industry action.

Despite being fierce competitors, major AI labs work together behind the scenes. They share intelligence on suspicious API usage from shell companies to identify and thwart large-scale, coordinated distillation attacks from foreign adversaries, which might otherwise go undetected by a single lab.

Major AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI cannot legally form agreements to "pace" development without government approval. The Sherman Antitrust Act prohibits such collusion, which could be seen as forming a cartel, even if the stated intention is safety.

Frontier AI labs are restricting API access not just for security, but to prevent competitors from using 'distillation' to create cheap copies of their models. This practice makes it impossible to recoup massive R&D investments, forcing a move towards more restrictive, geopolitically motivated access.

Top AI labs are hesitant to collectively slow down development for safety reasons due to concerns about being accused of forming an anti-competitive cartel. This creates a paradox where the industry requires government involvement or a legal exemption to coordinate on risk mitigation.