# AI Subscribers Sue Four Companies Over Alleged Slowdown Deal

> Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.

- Episode: S1E44
- Published: 2026-09-20
- HTML: https://www.chiefskepticofficer.online/episodes/s1e44
- Audio: https://csomediaweu.blob.core.windows.net/media/audio/s1e44.mp3
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O5t6cliUG0

## Summary

Paying AI subscribers allege Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google agreed to slow development. The case raises a difficult question about who sets safety limits for competing companies and everyone affected by their products. Also: the WaterPlum fake-interview campaign, Talking Tilly's emotion inference and call reten

## Show notes

Paying AI subscribers allege Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google agreed to slow development. The case raises a difficult question about who sets safety limits for competing companies and everyone affected by their products. Also: the WaterPlum fake-interview campaign, Talking Tilly's emotion inference and call retention, and Cloudflare's reported 100TB memory saving and careful migration. Hosts: Alex & Jordan Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about. Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York Episode date: 2026-09-20 In this episode AI slowdown faces a competition lawsuit — Four paying customers seek to represent other subscribers in a lawsuit alleging an agreement among Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google to slow AI development. The complaint challenges coordination among competitors while allowing independent restraint. The allegations and claimed customer harm have not been established by a court. Safety risks can be real while private agreements still deserve scrutiny. The job interview that installs the attack — A September 18 joint advisory attributes at least 30,000 infected devices in more than 100 countries to North Korea's WaterPlum group. Fake recruitment tasks can install malware and steal credentials. Those are agency findings, and devices are not a count of individual victims. Real employers should make caution compatible with getting hired and offer safer technical-test arrangements. Tilly's privacy promise has several parts — Talking Tilly's policy says conversations are not used for AI training, while describing live emotion inference, age verification, recordings normally retained for 24 hours, transcripts for up to eight weeks, and possible human review. Exceptions apply. These are attributed policy terms, not an independent audit of deletion, inference accuracy or legal compliance. No-training language answers only one part of the privacy question. Saving memory without breaking customer sites — Cloudflare reports freeing more than 100TB of RAM in its Pingora Backend Router through compact records and fewer routing points. Running old and new routing versions together helped avoid shifting sudden load to customers' origin servers. The result is company-reported, with no verified equivalent reduction in energy use or customer bills. The safe transition needs its own capacity budget. Links CBS and Associated Press report Filed AI slowdown complaint Joint WaterPlum advisory WaterPlum reporting Talking Tilly privacy policy Talking Tilly terms Cloudflare engineering report AI disclosure This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.

## AI disclosure

This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts.