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US antitrust regulators are investigating large AI players

Posted on by darion

US antitrust enforcers have decided to look into Big Tech’s role in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, examining whether the business practices of established players are stifling competition in the sector.

The US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have launched an investigation into the biggest players in the technology industry. This move puts Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft in greater danger of potential investigations.

Data

Speaking at an April event at the University of Chicago, Deputy Attorney General Jonathan Kanter expressed a “sense of urgency” to address the benefits that large companies have in accessing data used to train artificial intelligence models.

“To the extent that data has been aggregated or is in the hands of a few, it can provide a competitive benchmark as barriers to entry at scale and access to these key ingredients are limited to a small number of players,” he added. he said.

Employees

Another area of ​​concern is the impact that generative AI could have on the creative people whose work it could replicate, as well as on the engineers who create the technology.

Kanter told a conference on artificial intelligence at Stanford University co-hosted by the Department of Justice in late May: “In the absence of competition to reward creators for their creations, AI companies could exploit the power of monopsony at a level we have never seen before.” .

Cooperation

FTC Chair Lina Khan said in January that “we are examining whether these connections allow dominant companies to exert undue influence or gain privileged access in a way that could undermine fair competition among layers of the AI ​​stack.”

At that time, the FTC launched a wide-ranging investigation into artificial intelligence companies and cloud service providers. They ordered OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Anthropic to provide information on recent investments and partnerships.

The regulator is also seeking to understand how partnerships with Big Tech influence strategy and “pricing decisions for products and services; decisions regarding granting access to products and services; and staffing decisions.”

Reuters contributed to this report.