OpenAI Asks Congress Whether an AI Slowdown Would Be Legal

The notable move here is procedural rather than technical: a leading developer is asking lawmakers to pre-clear the legal ground for a slowdown it has not committed to. That reframes AI safety from an internal engineering choice into an antitrust question, and it puts Congress, not just regulators, in the position of defining what restraint is permissible. The open question is whether lawmakers treat coordinated caution as collusion or as a legitimate safety exception — and whether other labs follow with similar requests.