The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced this Thursday that it will investigate the relationship between large technology companies and their financing of artificial intelligence development companies. In the spotlight are OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and Anthropic.
FTC Chair Lina Khan held a press conference Thursday and she reported that the federal agency is “scrutinizing whether these ties enable dominant firms to exert undue influence or gain privileged access in ways that could undermine fair competition." These companies are large technology corporations.
FTC issues 6(b) orders regarding recent investments and partnerships involving generative #AI and major cloud service providers: https://t.co/rFtvH9pJS9 #GenAI /1
— FTC (@FTC) January 25, 2024
Five companies received "mandatory orders" to provide the FTC with all the materials necessary for the investigation. Amazon, Google and Microsoft have all made large investments in AI companies, most notably Microsoft's close collaboration with OpenAI. The monetary amount for the deal between the two companies is still unknown. Anthropic also received massive funding accounting for several thousands of dollars from Google and Amazon.
The FTC intends to examine whether these large investments have in any way altered the balance of competition. If the agreements between developers and Big Tech are illegal, the FTC investigation could set a precedent for future monopoly cases in the technology sector.
