Itâs not just a matter of best-sellers in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), but also of preventing anti-competitive outcomes. At a recent StrictlyVC event in Washington, DC, Lina Khan, chair of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), revealed much about the agencyâs approach to level the playing field. The push is to keep the arteries of commerce open, especially for startups willing to take a risk on competing with the AI crowd.
The crux of Khanâs message was this: far from seeking to deliberately strangle nascent start-ups with stifling red tape, the FTC was committed to âkeeping the deep ditchâ, that is, the âpathways of commerce openâ. Khan stressed that the Commission was determined to let startups âwith good ideasâ get a âfair shot at competingâ. The idea was to make sure that âsuccess flows to [the] coolest ideaâ, rather than an ability to finagle around the âbig guysâ.
So, even as it carves out a space for this openness, the FTC is also well aware of many of the risks and dangers that Covid-19-fueled and post-Covid-19 AI technology will bring. Consumers are also increasingly complaining about cases of voice-cloning fraud, such as an AI version of Scarlett Johanssonâs voice created recently by OpenAI.
And after much work during Khanâs tenure, the agency has jurisdiction over the whole ecosystem. âWeâre looking left and right and across the stack,â Khan told me when I asked where the FTCâs jurisdiction lay. âItâs not just the chips and the cloud and the AI models. Itâs the apps that are being built.â âIâm trying to help us think about this stuff in a holistic way.â
And yet, even with a technically savvy team, placing bets on next-generation AI is tricky, Khan admits: âI canât even phone the whole AI landscape, we have a smaller workforce than in the 1980s, and the economy is 100 times bigger than it used to be. So in some cases, we have to make a statement like âweâre going to have a voice-cloning challengeâ to crowdsource the general public.â
Another promising area of focus for Khanâs FTC is how to enforce whether so-called open AI platforms are as open as they seem. âWe talked about what open really means,â he tells me. âYou donât want to have open first, closed later. Thatâs how the Web 2.0 cycle played out.â
Likewise, the FTC has its eye on AI featured in deceptive advertising, an issue that has gained urgency in recent years as âAIâ tools flood the market, promising more than they deliver. Khan insists on policing misleading marketing so as to âenforce trustâ in consumers and ensure the AI marketplaceâs growth is legitimate.
Lina Khan ultimately sees what she calls an enduring vision of âdelicately balanced innovationâ â an antitrust environment where startups can rise alongside giants, every player is judged on the strength of their ideas, and consumer welfare remains paramount. This future will be shaped as much by the technology as the law. And if the FTC is successful in fostering this environment while reigning in its excesses, the world will be a better, more balanced place.
This means that openness in AI means that AI platforms and technologies are available and understood. Openness in AI means that advancements in AI are shared so that tools and resources can be made accessible to different communities as a way to foster experimentation, collaboration and ethical use of AI technologies. In so doing, openness not only move technology forward, but also ensure that AI technologies will be used by as many people in society and that all American consumers will share equally in the bounty of the FTCâs continual effort to keep the arteries of commerce open for all.
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