In a new investigation, the FTC seeks to reveal the complicated and covert business links of leading AI companies. Chair Lina Khan said orders to Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI will “shed light on whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition.”
No misconduct is claimed. Companies under investigation for antitrust activities or who have been punished or settled for them seem to be trying to lock down the next great technology for themselves.
The billion-dollar difference between Anthropic’s (supported by Google and Amazon) and OpenAI’s (funded by Microsoft) funding is proof of this. What do these firms represent except digital superpower ambitions? 
It seems that way to laypeople and the FTC, which can spot early market power growth.
“History shows that new technologies create new markets and healthy competition. Khan said, “As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity.”
The firms above must share due to orders:
- Partnerships, investments, and “strategic rationale”
- Whether these relationships affect product release timing or method.
- Topics discussed at meetings.
- Any examination of these deals’ competitive impact on market share, competition, etc.
- The partnerships’ impact on AI-specific resource competition (such as computing power).
- Anything given to foreign or domestic governments on these issues.
The corporations involved will likely call this a fishing expedition into innocent commercial connections. Why shouldn’t firms that have invested billions in AI spend more on promising but diametrically opposed new challengers?
Microsoft informed Eltrys after publishing that its OpenAI acquisition is “promoting competition and accelerating innovation”; you decide. Google used the occasion to passive-aggressively criticize Microsoft’s tactics. Both invite inquiries.
Today, the FTC is convening a symposium on AI’s market and entrepreneurial prospects and risks. Khan began by saying that training AI models “further incentivizes surveillance,” which Google, Meta, et al. have embraced over the previous decade, and that firms “can’t use claims of innovation as cover for law-breaking.”
A timely inquiry saves nine, to paraphrase an adage. Whether the Commission takes additional action is unknown, but the probe alerts these corporations that they are being scrutinized.
