California drivers sue gas stations for allegedly using AI to inflate prices

Firms including BP and 7-Eleven accused of coordinating prices to ‘wring more money from pockets of consumers’ Gas ⁠station ​operators including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons were sued on Monday by California drivers ⁠who accused them of using artificial intelligence to boost prices at the pump. According to a proposed class action, the defendants ⁠violated California’s main antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, by using an AI-based tool that ​uses data from competing gas ‌stations to “coordinate high prices ‌and wring more money from the pockets of consumers”. The lawsuit in the ‌Sacramento federal court said the scheme violated assembly bill 325, a California law that took effect on 1 January and was intended to crack down on algorithmic price fixing. Drivers said gas prices have risen as much as 30 cents a gallon in areas where high percentages of stations ‌use the AI tool, which comes from a company called Kalibrate. Each penny costs California drivers an extra $134m per year, boosting ​gasoline prices to “astronomical” levels sometimes reaching $7 a gallon, the complaint said. “While families struggle to afford the commute to work, defendants have consp