I want to delve into the full scope of the Anthropic AI takeover of politics happening over the past week. Yesterday, the company’s CEO Dario Amodei came out and explicitly asked for antitrust laws not to apply to the biggest AI firms. His biggest rival, Sam Altman, quickly agreed. And they are suggesting this legal change just before Anthropic seeks to sell shares on the stock exchange, minting a whole series of AI millionaires and billionaires.. [...]
Let me start with a very simple point. It is already illegal to release products that hurt people. It is illegal to compete by releasing products that hurt people. If these guys are genuinely manufacturing things that kill innocent people, the FBI should be arresting them immediately. The idea that they would not only release such products, but also issue stock for the American people to invest in multi-trillion dollar initial public offerings for such ventures, as Anthropic is planning, is utter lunacy. ~ Matt Stoller: Just Stop the Anthropic IPO Already.
Let me start with a very simple point. It is already illegal to release products that hurt people. It is illegal to compete by releasing products that hurt people. If these guys are genuinely manufacturing things that kill innocent people, the FBI should be arresting them immediately. The idea that they would not only release such products, but also issue stock for the American people to invest in multi-trillion dollar initial public offerings for such ventures, as Anthropic is planning, is utter lunacy. ~ Matt Stoller: Just Stop the Anthropic IPO Already.
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These are for profit corporations taking in billions of dollars from the world. You can't ensure your product isn't dangerous? Then don't release it until you figure it out! ~ Comments section, Lina Khan post (below):
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1. There is an extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products. For example, releasing unvetted AI models or agents can violate consumer protection laws. Shipping flawed AI tools without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents can be an “unfair or deceptive” act or practice under the FTC Act (and analogous state laws). And some state AGs are already exploring holding AI firms and their CEOs criminally liable when their models participate in criminal activity.
2. Existing laws also prohibit “unfair methods of competition.” This covers instances where AI firms appropriate the competitively sensitive information of their customers, including through tracking their use of various tools. It can also cover instances where firms pursue dangerous behavior, aware that doing so may compel rivals to do the same. As the Supreme Court has noted: “A method of competition which casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal, was thought to involve the kind of unfairness at which the [unfair methods of competition] statute was aimed."
3. The highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets could be creating major risks and conflicts of interest. We had started investigating these partnerships and cross-investments across the stack (and released a preliminarily overview of some findings: ftc.gov/news-events/ne…). Both federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and inter-dependencies. We are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this — given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.
4. As AI tools dramatically change the landscape of cybersecurity risks and hacks, all businesses should be doubling down on having core security protections in place. Firms that fail to invest in adequate data security measures or fix known vulnerabilities can also be breaking the law. A recent analysis showed that around 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies do not even have a way to notify them about security issues. During my @FTC tenure, we sued firms for poor data security practices and held CEOs liable when they were personally responsible.
5. As policymakers consider new legal regimes, we should be looking to lessons from prior efforts to govern major sectors, such as banking and other networks, platforms, and utilities. Tools like structural separations, nondiscrimination, and supervision could be key, and there’s a rich history of what works and what doesn’t. But we can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws.
by Lina Khan, Former Chair, Federal Trade Commission 2021-2025 | Read more:
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2) If you worked in a company where you anticipated a 10% chance that your product would kill ten people, let alone all people, the correct response would be horror, ceasing all operations, and likely contacting the police or other criminal authorities. I am obviously no Coxon booster but at least his behavior is in line with his stated beliefs. Any current AI company employees saying "yes, me too, the thing we are building and about to IPO may kill all humans" should, again, not be taken seriously. Their actions betray their actual beliefs.
3) Antitrust law does not prevent AI companies from coordinating to make sure AI does not hurt people. It does not prevent companies working together to make sure it doesn't hack people; the DOJ and FTC made this clear a decade ago when they issued a policy statement saying that the agencies "do not believe that antitrust is – or should be – a roadblock to legitimate cybersecurity information sharing." The same principles apply here. See: justice.gov/archives/opa/p…
4) Antitrust law does absolutely prevent AI companies from organizing to prevent the entry of cheaper, upstart rivals because the bigger companies are burning cash and failing to achieve sufficient profitability. The panic of individual employees may be sincere if misguided, but the moves by their CEOs to achieve some kind of broad "antitrust waiver" or "exemption" should be meet with deep skepticism in light of the economics of the industry and the threat they face from open models.
by Alvaro Bedoya, Former Commissioner Federal Trade Commission 2022-2025 | Read more:
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Mr. Trump made it clear that in Silicon Valley’s roiling debate over what to do about A.I., the president is very much on the side of executives who argue worries about safety are overblown and the government should avoid regulation. His disinterest in government involvement runs counter to pleas from leading A.I. companies like Anthropic. ~ Idiot in Chief (via NYT).
See also: Trump Says a Smart President Is All That’s Needed to Rein In A.I. [ed. Certainly useful, if we had one.]
