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 DeepMind have quit in noisy ways, saying the models pose real threats and safety isn’t being taken seriously across the industry. Other researchers have said the chance of AI killing us all is greater than 10 percent, and the CEOs of all these companies have issued various calls to slow down development and develop regulation, including asking for antitrust exemptions so they can all coordinate on safety issues.
That is a lot of ideas, and I am especially curious about the antitrust piece, which has led to accusations that these companies are seeking regulatory capture, attempting to form a cartel, and even somehow finding a way out from investor pressure ahead of their IPOs.
Verge subscribers, don’t forget…
So…
