U.S. regulators have drawn the regulatory sword for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, following search engines, social media, and e-commerce sectors.
On the 3rd (local time), Lina Khan, Chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which holds supervisory authority over big tech companies, stated in an op-ed published in the New York Times (NYT) that "competition among companies to monetize AI is intensifying," and that the FTC is "closely examining unfair and deceptive practices."
She noted, "Thanks to the rapid development of generative AI, people around the world have experienced revolutionary technology that profoundly impacts how they live, work, and communicate," but added, "The beginning of this revolutionary technology has ultimately resulted in concentrating enormous personal power in major services and entrenching business models that pay a heavy price in privacy and security."
She said, "We will strongly enforce the law in this new market as well," expressing caution about AI being used in violation of antitrust and consumer protection laws.
She then compared the current state of AI development to the mid-2000s. Chair Khan pointed out that while the emergence of tech companies like Facebook and Google greatly changed communication methods, privacy protections were not fully realized even years later.
Khan emphasized, "We now face another moment of choice," and added, "As AI becomes widely used, we have a responsibility to ensure we do not repeat the hard-learned lessons of history."
She said the FTC is monitoring the influence of a few companies controlling the sources necessary for AI tool usage, noting that these dominant companies can exclude competitors and "choose winners and losers in ways that further consolidate their dominance."
She also warned that AI tools used for pricing can "not only facilitate collusion that unfairly inflates prices but also promote price discrimination," emphasizing, "The FTC has legal jurisdiction to address issues arising in the rapidly evolving AI sector, including collusion, monopolization, price discrimination, and unfair competition."
Furthermore, she viewed that generative AI poses a risk of "encouraging fraud" by generating messages that appear genuine. She stated, "Chatbots are already being used to craft highly targeted spear-phishing emails," and added, "We will scrutinize not only the scammers deploying such tools but also the companies enabling them."
Earlier, on the 18th of last month, Chair Khan warned in a speech to the U.S. House of Representatives that consumer harm such as fraud would surge due to AI devices, emphasizing that government authorities have the power to crack down on related harms under existing laws. She also mentioned in March that the FTC is paying close attention to AI development to ensure the AI sector is not dominated by major tech platforms.
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