The US Department of Justice has moved to intervene in Elon Musk’sÂxAI lawsuit against Colorado, escalating a federal challenge to the state’s first-in-the-nation artificial intelligence “antidiscrimination” law just over two months before it is set to take effect.

The intervention, filed in federal court in Denver, marks the first time the DOJ has joined a constitutional challenge to a state AI regulation. It pairs the federal government with xAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot, in arguing that Senate Bill 24-205 violates the US Constitution and threatens American leadership in artificial intelligence.

We obtained a copy of the filing for youhere.

The Colorado law, signed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in 2024, requires developers and deployers of “high-risk” AI systems used in decisions about hiring, housing, education, lending and other consequential matters to take reasonable care to prevent algorithmic discrimination, disclose how their systems operate and notify consumers when AI plays a role in decisions affecting them. It is scheduled to take effect on June 30 after an earlier delay.

The main claim in xAI’s case, filed April 9, is a First Amendment claim. The company argues the law amounts to compelled speech because its definition of algorithmic discrimination prohibits disparate-impact discrimination generally while exempting algorithms designed to “increase diversity or redress historical discrimination.”

That carveout, xAI contends, forces developers to align their models’ outputs with state-preferred viewpoints.

“By requiring ‘developers’ and ‘deployers’ to differentiate between discrimination that Colorado disfavors and discrimination that Colorado favors, SB24-205 compels Plaintiff xAI — a ‘developer’ under the law — to alter Grok, forcing Grok’s output on certain State-selected subjects to conform to a controversial, highly politicized viewpoint,” the company’s attorneys wrote in their complaint.

The lawsuit also contends that the law would cause Grok to “abandon its disinterested pursuit of truth and instead promote the State’s ideological views on various matters, racial justice in particular,” and argues the statute is “unconstitutionally vague” and “invites arbitrary enforcement” because key terms are not defined.

The DOJ’s complaint adds a Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection theory. Federal attorneys argue that by relying on demographic data and statistical disparities to identify discrimination, the law would compel developers to make race-, sex- and religion-conscious adjustments to AI outputs.

“SB24-205 constrains the information that AI systems convey, obligates AI developers and deployers to discriminate, and then enforces the state-mandated discrimination with onerous policy, assessment, and disclosure requirements that will disproportionately burden small businesses and start-ups,” DOJ lawyers wrote in the 19-page filing.

Source: Infowars: There's a War on For Your Mind!