FTC Chairman Lina Khan Promises to Safeguard Competition in the AI Market

Lina Khan, the chair of the FTC, stated on Monday that her agency will preserve competition in the emerging market for artificial intelligence tools, warning that big-tech firms may "start to panic" and attempt to obstruct new entrants using unethical means.

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Ms. Khan said the Federal Trade Commission would be keeping an eye on startups to make sure they can compete in the AI field while speaking at an antitrust conference.

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Ms. Khan added, "We need to be very watchful to make sure that this is not just another site for the big firms becoming bigger and actually squelching competition. Machine learning depends on huge amounts of data and also relies on huge amounts of storage.

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"That's when you see the incumbents start to fear" when a technology shift is occurring, Ms. Khan continued. "You see the incumbents occasionally needing to use anti-competitive techniques to defend their moats and protect their dominance."

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The FTC and the Justice Department jointly sponsored the 2023 Annual Antitrust Enforcers Summit, where Ms. Khan delivered her remarks. Both organizations have the power to enforce US antitrust laws.

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Speaking at the conference, Jonathan Kanter, the antitrust chief for the Justice Department, highlighted Ms. Khan's worries about maintaining competition in the AI field.

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“Scale is always a factor when discussing artificial intelligence,” according to Mr. Kanter. “So, markets that depend on scale inherently often run the risk of having wide moats and high barriers to entry. It's critical that we comprehend that.”

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The new AI boom was launched last year when San Francisco-based research company OpenAI made its Dall-E 2 image-generation tool available to the general public. Dall-E 2 can produce unique images based on straightforward instructions. Then, ChatGPT, an AI tool that can produce anything from business strategies to limericks, was launched by OpenAI.

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Microsoft, which invested several billions of dollars in OpenAI, has incorporated the AI of the business into its Bing search engine and is incorporating it into office software products like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

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Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has added some AI-powered writing tools to its Gmail and Docs services to encourage people to start writing.

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Ms. Khan became well-known for her outspoken criticism of large technology corporations and for raising concerns about mergers that, in years past, probably wouldn't have been raised.

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The FTC filed a lawsuit against Facebook's parent firm, Meta Platforms Inc., last year. From purchasing the virtual reality start-up Inside Limitless Inc., META fell by 1.54%. According to the FTC, if the purchase goes through, it will probably impede competition in a nascent industry.

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The FTC withdrew its fight against the purchase last month after a federal judge rejected its request for an injunction blocking the deal in January.

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In her remarks on Monday, Ms. Khan brought up that case, stating that even while the judge rejected the FTC's request for relief, he supported the organization in significant legal challenges. According to Ms. Khan, the judge's decision strengthened the law in the FTC's favor and provided a roadmap for upcoming legal challenges.

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“That's a great example of a case that didn't turn out the way we expected, but it really helped set out a map and indicate the way for continuing to pursue possible competition issues, especially in digital markets and especially in emerging markets,” Ms. Khan said.