148
California drivers sue gas stations for allegedly using AI to inflate prices
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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Is it illegal if they don't collude?
The but that makes using AI illegal is if they all use a common platform/service.
It's legal if they don't do any communication between the companies. Then nobody can prove that there is collusion. Using AI, that all use the same way to raise the prices and vibe the prices higher as response to the other AI raising prices is even better. Then it's not even any human intent.
Landlords used a common platform to price fix without communication between the companies and that was ruled illegal, it's not quite the same but because of the way public LLMs don't isolate inputs from users, you could argue that if any 2 users input their prices into the same platform they are engaging in collision as the information isn't public.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-proposed-settlement-greystar-largest-us-landlord-end-its
Really we should just ban all algorithmic price setting.