NEWS / NOV.2026
Public Citizen and three other NGOs seek a freeze on new frontier AI models at five companies
Public Citizen and three other NGOs have asked a San Francisco court to suspend the development and deployment of new frontier AI models at five companies. They believe the companies have done too little to control the risks associated with biological weapons and cyberattacks.
In San Francisco, four NGOs are asking the court to freeze the development and deployment of new frontier AI models
On November 12, 2026, Public Citizen, Irreplaceable Education Fund, Heat Initiative and Alliance for Secure AI filed a civil complaint in the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco. They are asking the judge to bar five companies from developing or deploying new frontier AI models whose risks the plaintiffs consider inadequately controlled. The Associated Press confirms that the complaint names Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and SpaceXSI.
In their press release, the plaintiffs say they fear these models could make it easier to develop biological weapons or carry out cyberattacks. An attacker could, for example, use a model to help break into a government agency’s computer system. The agency could suffer harm as a result without ever having used the model.
As Reuters reports, the NGOs are invoking California’s Unfair Competition Law, which covers unfair business practices. They are asking the court to find that developing or deploying a model under these conditions constitutes an unfair business practice. Such a finding would give the judge a legal basis for ordering a suspension.
If the court grants the suspension, it will set its scope. The ruling will specify which models it covers and whether it applies to developing them or making them available.