151
California drivers sue gas stations for allegedly using AI to inflate prices
(www.theguardian.com)
why ? is it illegal ? what standings could they possibly have ?
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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Price fixing is a form of collusion, and it's a crime - even if the sellers can claim they didn't all sit down in a room together.
Phoenix apartments had an inflated housing market that was caused by price fixing. The property management used software to set rental prices, and the terms of service required them to use the prices suggested. None of the managers individually spoke to each other, but the software algorithmically inflated rent based on what other properties could get away with charging.
Like do you really need an AI to do this? It's been going on for years where I live. It's not hard for all the local gas stations to collude to raise prices. It's easier than ever when you have the likes of gasbuddy crowd-sourcing all the price-checking.
I knew someone who worked for a gas station in a medium size college town. Part of her job was to jump in her car once a night and write down the prices that other local gas stations were charging, so the prices at her station could be adjusted. It didn't require AI, only a Honda Accord.
i like to point out that companies are using ai to be a boogeyman to distract you. take every article tou read and remove ai from the text or replace it with automation/algorithm.
even the jobs. 5 years ago it was "company lays off 10000 employees" response was "fuck management" -- today they are doing the same thing but add "because ai" and everyone now says "fuck ai".
Yeah, most of the analysis I have seen has shown job losses due to AI have amounted to less than 1% of job losses in the US. Most of the losses are because of... just look at the White House. Easier to blame AI than actually admit politics is causing some serious issues.
That's illegal as well.
Sure, but now you can blame the AI. Sorry, not our fault.
how does the logic work so it's not their fault? if they are price fixing they are price fixing, the mechanism doesn't matter.
Yep, if you tell an AI to do something, you are at least partially to blame for whatever it does. They shouldn't be able to avoid responsibility that easily.
That's kind if what Germany told Google. "If you have AI write your search summaries, you are responsible for checking its work and liable for its mistakes.
No, you are entirely to blame.
Yeah you're probably on the money there. AI gives you some sort of plausible deniability?
It didn't work for the RealPage rent price-fixing lawsuit.
It certainly is. They get caught once in a while. The first time it happened was when I added the term "oligopoly" to my vocabulary.
Tell that to OPEC.
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.
Really we should just ban all algorithmic price setting.
Chevron: "Ha! You won't catch us using AI, our prices have always been ridiculous!"
I just got my EV. I never have to deal with these scammers again.
Congrats! However, it's worth pointing out that gas prices affect the cost of pretty much everything in the end; transportation/logistics, electricity, etc.