Does AI need an antitrust exemption so it doesn’t kill everyone????
Today on Decoder, we’ve got the first of a two-part series on the future of business, and I’m talking with Jonathan Kanter, the former antitrust chief for the US Department of Justice in the Biden administration. These days, he’s both a professor of law at WashU and professor of technology policy at Carnegie Mellon. The biggest story in tech right now is the spiraling debate about AI safety and regulation. Researchers at the big AI labs including Anthropic and Google Dee
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Big AI companies are asking the government for antitrust exemptions so they can coordinate on safety issues, claiming the technology poses serious risks. The former head of the DOJ's Antitrust Division argues these companies do not need to coordinate with each other to build safe products, comparing it to how Boeing and Airbus handle safety separately, and warns that exemptions could enable cartel behavior and regulatory capture. The debate hinges on whether the companies genuinely fear AI risks or are seeking permission to slow down spending before going public, but either interpretation should not result in antitrust exemptions according to this analysis. Companies have a responsibility to build safe products on their own and can be held liable for problems their technology creates, just as they would be for employee misconduct.
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