The Department of Justice joined a lawsuit seeking to block Colorado’s first-in-the-nation artificial intelligence antidiscrimination law from taking effect, escalating a legal fight that began two weeks ago with a challenge filed by Elon Musk’s xAI.
Senate Bill 205, which was signed into law in 2024, aims to regulate “high-risk” AI systems and protect consumers from so-called algorithmic discrimination, which is when a computer system produces biased results that disadvantage certain people, especially based on traits like race, gender, age or income.
Attorneys for the federal government joined Musk’s xAI in arguing that the law jeopardizes the United States’ position as “the global AI leader” by requiring AI systems to “incorporate discriminatory ideology that prioritizes preferred demographic characteristics over accurate and merit-based 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 attorneys wrote in the 19-page complaint, which was filed in federal court in Denver.
Attorneys also claimed the law fosters further discrimination and violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by distorting AI model outputs in a way that requires developers and deployers to discriminate based on race, sex, religion and other protected characteristics.
The joint lawsuit comes as the state lawmakers gear up for a third time to debate tweaks to the policy, which is set to go into effect June 30. Senate Bill 205 was initially supposed to take effect in February, but was pushed back to allow for more negotiations on changes to the law amid industry and interest group objections.
Musk’s xAI company filed its lawsuit against Colorado on April 9. Musk’s lawyers argued that the law is “unconstitutionally vague” and “invites arbitrary enforcement” because it fails to define key terms.
The xAI lawsuit also contends that Colorado’s law would cause Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, to “abandon its disinterested pursuit of truth and instead promote the State’s ideological views on various matters, racial justice in particular,” which they say violates the First Amendment.
The office for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is named in the lawsuit and would have the responsibility of enforcing the law, told The Colorado Sun the attorney general has “no comment” on the active litigation.
One of the lead sponsors of the bill, Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada, called the DOJ’s allegations a distraction from the work lawmakers are undertaking to reform the law.
Senate Bill 205 “is, and has always been, promoted as a policy to prevent and curtail discrimination for consequential decisions,” Titone told The Sun in an email.
Titone said she and other lawmakers plan to continue to get AI companies to strive for better outcomes for consumers.
“With our soon-to-be-introduced bill, we can create more demand and better outcomes for AI products. This should be what AI companies want, because right now, the public knows very well that AI gets things wrong often and it’s not worth the price to pay for their snake oil,” she said.
In a statement Friday, Rep. Manny Rutinel, D-Commerce City, one of the sponsors of the bill, accused the president of attacking the law in a plot to benefit himself and Musk.
“Coloradans deserve technology that works for everyone,” Rutinel said, “not just billionaires.”