OpenAI Wants to Know if an AI Industry Slowdown Would Even Be Legal
OpenAI is exploring whether industry-wide coordination to slow down AI development for safety reasons would violate US antitrust laws. While some lawmakers are proposing legislation to permit such collaboration, legal experts warn that current statutes remain a significant barrier.
Why it matters
Addresses the tension between the need for AI safety regulation and the legal constraints of competition law in the tech sector.
Substantive coordination on safety between AI labs may risk running afoul of antitrust law, the people say, which poses a significant obstacle to bringing major tech giants on-board with the effort.
Last weekend, OpenAI’s chief scientist Jakub Pachocki published a blog post arguing that the best path forward for the AI research world includes “coordinating to slow down future development,” which he thinks will be key to ensuring self-improving AI systems are safe. In the short term, he expects “voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established.”
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in