The OpenAI-Anthropic Cold War Comes to Illinois

A high-stakes lobbying war has erupted in Illinois between AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic over proposed legislation that would fundamentally reshape corporate liability. At the center is Senate Bill 3444, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Act, which despite its name would offer frontier AI companies a legal shield. The bill would protect firms from lawsuits for large-scale harms, defined as the death or serious injury of 100 or more people or at least $1 billion in property damage. OpenAI is actively pushing for the bill's passage, a move seen as preemptive given the company faces several wrongful death lawsuits related to ChatGPT.

Anthropic has taken the opposite stance, lobbying to alter or kill SB 3444 entirely. The company's head of US state and local government relations, Cesar Fernandez, called the bill a "get-out-of-jail-free card" and argued for accountability. Instead, Anthropic is backing a competing bill, SB 3261, which would require AI firms to create public safety and child protection plans subject to audit. This clash extends a pattern from California, where the two companies were previously at odds over safety legislation. The fight underscores a core tension in AI governance: whether to prioritize rapid innovation with legal protection or enforce stricter safety and transparency standards that hold developers responsible for potential harms.