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Comment by thr_w | Hacker News Reader

Is breaking them up really a priority? What benefit would that have that we couldn't achieve via properly taxing and regulating them in the first place?

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It would help give China a fairer chance in the AI race. Due to economies of scale and the sheer amount of resources they command, Facebook and Google are able to conduct research that would otherwise be incredibly expensive (e.g. training AlphaZero), and offer incredibly high salaries to lure in researchers. Apparently 80% of all machine learning engineers work at Google or Facebook! Breaking this concentration of machine learning research power would give companies like Baidu, Bytedance and Tencent, which were not broken up and which enjoy strong government support, the chance to catch up and maybe even overtake the remnants of Google/Facebook.

It would also give other companies in the US a better shot at the same goal. The focus on China seems unwarranted.

I don't think its fair to underestimate China. Breaking up Amazon or Google would benefit China more than the west. Sure Amazon and Google are possibly too large, but their Chinese counter parts are equally as large and direct competitors. The idea behind breaking these companies up is to encourage market competition but that competition already exists and will not be broken up in China. Somehow Warren always has the wrong solutions but is generally correct in identifying a problem.

> Breaking up Amazon or Google would benefit China more than the west

China doesn't seem to be having any problems competing, and winning, against Google and Amazon. Baidu and Alibaba are huge.

But presumably if other companies in the US got as powerful as Facebook/Google, they'd just be broken up too, for the same reasons, no? And if they weren't that big/powerful, they'd lack the economies of scale to do what Google and Facebook are doing now. So any other country with giant technology companies (which in practice right now is just China) would have an advantage.

There are industry consortiums and partnerships and the like. Surely some of these companies could find a way to work together. And surely the U.S. with the NSA could initiate its own Manhattan Project for A.I.

> It would help give China a fairer chance in the AI race.

Interesting platform for a US presidential candidate to promote regulations against US companies to promote world corperate “fairness”.

Yes, a very strange argument. The GP seemed to be calling for making US AI research less efficient because it's the sporting thing to do?

I'm not just throwing stones here. I'd welcome some clarification from GP.

The original poster asked what benefit breaking them up would have, they didn't necessarily ask for a benefit that's something lots of Americans would see as positive. America and its technology companies aren't super popular in many parts of the world in recent years, and people unfond of it would welcome progress in AI technology becoming less concentrated in the US. Maybe a more left-leaning Senator like Warren might see some benefit in power being more evenly distributed globally, rather than concentrated in a few big US tech companies.

I don't mind spitballing a bit here.

I'm definitely left-leaning economically. I also am very much in favor of giving developing nations a chance at competing with our economy.

However, I would go more or less the opposite direction of what you're suggesting. I support allowing American companies to produce jobs on foreign shores _provided those companies follow American labor laws_. I'm in favor of pro-labor regulation and I'm also in favor of free international trade, but not where the latter is at the expense of the former. A totally free world market would circumvent our protections at home.

All this to say, I wouldn't really call what you're suggesting a benefit by any view.

>All this to say, I wouldn't really call what you're suggesting a benefit by any view.

It's certainly a benefit from the view of the Chinese government.

I think the general theory is that if we allow them to continue getting bigger and swallowing up all potential competitors, we’re basically saying these four or five companies will run everything, forever.

Also they've been hoovering up all the talent available they can get with fat salaries and stock grants.

I think that wildly overstates the influence these companies have. Amazon is trivial to avoid. Just don't shop there or at Whole Foods. Facebook is a bit trickier because you might be forced there by a social group and they have a huge web of trackers.

Google is really the issue. They are dominant in search, browser, and maps, and they're half the mobile duopoly. It's very difficult to avoid using their products entirely and even if you did, their dominance allows them to dictate how the internet works, to a certain extent.

Avoiding Amazon would also mean avoiding all aws services, not letting your data hit their infrastructure.

Not a huge disagreement here, but I think Facebook is completely trivial to avoid, while Amazon is much less so.

I couldn't care less about Facebook. Yet, while I certainly could live without Amazon (or Whole Foods), their service is very nice and WF has things I can't buy at other grocery stores around me.

Good luck avoiding having your data collected by facebook via third parties, and good luck avoiding the effects it has on the society you live in.

Taxing and regulation stifles innovation, risk taking and productivity. It also encourages cronyism.

I prefer breaking up monopolies if the end result will be a healthier, consumer-focused and competition driven market.

Given that this is an Elizabeth Warren idea, I'm suspicious that the motives are anything having to do with creating a vibrant market... :)

I guess by breaking them up, regulating and taxing them becomes easier, because the parts don't have the same power?

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