The US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have agreed to investigate Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI for potential antitrust violations in the AI industry. The Department of Justice will focus on Nvidia, while the FTC will handle Microsoft and OpenAI. One area of concern is Nvidia’s dominance in the market with its chips and software. The Deputy Attorney General highlighted the scarcity of GPUs needed for training large language models as a key issue.
The FTC is looking into Microsoft’s acquisition of Inflection and its impact on competition in the industry. The agency is investigating whether Microsoft structured the deal to avoid antitrust scrutiny. Inflection’s large language model and chatbot called Pi are now part of Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot. Microsoft has stated that it followed antitrust laws and that the deal allowed it to recruit talent for its AI projects.
Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI has also attracted regulatory scrutiny, particularly in Europe. The company’s profit-sharing agreement with OpenAI has raised concerns. Microsoft’s President defended the partnership, stating that it has introduced competition into the market. The FTC has initiated investigations into AI-related investments and partnerships involving multiple tech companies, including Microsoft and OpenAI.
The investigation into OpenAI focuses on potentially harmful or deceptive data privacy practices and risks of harm to consumers. The FTC is concerned about the generation of harmful or misleading content by AI models. Overall, the regulatory scrutiny of Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI shows a growing concern about competition in the AI industry and the need to ensure fair practices and compliance with antitrust laws.
Article Source
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/us-agencies-to-probe-ai-dominance-of-nvidia-microsoft-and-openai/