FTC Sends Civil Investigation Demand to OpenAI [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

FTC Sends Civil Investigation Demand to OpenAI [pdf]

washingtonpost.com

46 points1vuio0pswjnm716 comments

Honestly the extent to which Lina Khan is trying to stretch "unfair business practices" makes me think she needs to be removed from her post. This is so much thinner than the Microsoft/Activision merger block she just lost (the fourth such loss so far, with zero wins)... She's doubling down on a losing strategy instead of adapting to fit what the courts have upheld is the purpose of her agency. Not only is this a massive waste of taxpayer funding that the FTC gets, it's just putting up meritless stumbling blocks for American tech companies for a vendetta that the judicial system keeps ruling she hasn't been appointed to carry out. What a collosal set of pointless exercises.

I’m not going to be losing any sleep about Microsoft or OpenAI having to overcome government oversight.

Even if lost, the actions of the FTC are not meritless.

MSFT/Activision is a clear and obvious problem to me(well, that combined with the fact that Microsoft also recently bought Bethesda), and it feels weird to hear people try to claim the contrary. MSFT has already been pressuring Bethesda , a company that for decades now has been "release on all platforms possible", to stop shipping to PS5.

I for one appreciate the expansive view of antitrust being taken in that case, though I have no real feelings about this OpenAI case.

I'm not claiming the contrary — I think MSFT/Activision is a much stronger case. I'm saying that if she lost that case (which she just did!) this one seems incredibly weak by comparison. "Unfair business practices" are... deploying LLMs at all? Okay.

It sounds like someone's been hitting the Wall Street journal op-ed pipe a little too hard. A district court judge conducting a bench trial is there to make a judgment call based on the facts of a particular case, they do not have the authority to determine "the purpose of her agency" or what she has and hasn't "been appointed to carry out". As a principled judicial supremacist, I'm sure you'll revise your understanding of the FTC's authority should they win their appeal in the Microsoft case, right?

I feel like the Wall Street Journal has been pretty balanced on the FTC's case in regards to the MSFT/ATVI acquisition. They have noted Lina Kahn's strategy and how it is meant to hopefully bring attention to Congress of issues that are arising that the FTC doesn't really have legal grounds to stand on at the moment. They also have had some oped and reporting about how the FTC is being disruptive and over extending. It will be interesting to see what side of history Kahn's FTC lands. I guess you take what you want when you read reporting these days though.

The WSJ has a very personal unhealthy obsession with Lina Khan. https://twitter.com/DouglasLFarrar/status/166143619193632768...

Personally, I like her. It has been very long since someone from the government has shown some fight. One who is not afraid to lose. Some lawyers like to boast about not losing a single case in their career. There is something fake about that. Somehow you have found a way to game the system.

Vertical Integrations are bad and turn out to be bad in the long run. The Robinson Patman_Act was especially created to stop vertical integrations.

Consumer prices may go down. But what about quality. More Redfalls for you.

Today, people generally want corporate power to be checked. The judiciary has not got the memo yet. At the very least, someone is forcing them to think about it.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Her mandate is to be aggressive, and she is doing that. Long overdue, and it’s nice to see the alternative to complacency.

Government organizations, due to the immense power that owning the monopoly on violence gives them (in FTCs case, the ability to be prosecutor, judge & enforcer), are better served takng balanced views and focusing on eggregarious bad behaviour and economic growth vs. being ideologically driven. Ideology trumping balance almost always ends in tears given human nature.

The 0-4 Republican talking point was trotted out in today's ftc oversight committee hearing and Khan tried to push back several times that it is not true, FTC has won in several cases.

Not blocking mergers though! (That's why I said "fourth such loss" not "fourth of all losses.") It's true it's a Republican talking point, but I'm a lifelong Democrat, socially and fiscally progressive, and unfortunately they're right on this one IMO. Lina Khan has an axe to grind with tech, and it's not one the FTC has authority to grind, which is why she keeps losing and wasting everyone's time + the FTC's budget.

The FTC should be way, WAY more aggressive than they're being and busting down the doors at all of these parasitic megacorps like Micro$oft and "Open"AI. The complacency on the gov'ts side in recent years has been an absolute joke and it's about time we start stepping in and stomping out the breath from the corpos.

Quick question for any lawyers out there: would it be illegal for OpenAI to not respond to the letter? (regardless of what would be smart or not)

See the section on "what to expect if you don't comply": https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/competition-matters/2019/03/...

The relevant statute looks to be 15 U.S.C. § 57b–1(e); if you don't comply with the request they seek judicial enforcement, so they just ask a judge for a court order, at which point failure to comply is definitely illegal.

They’re asking training data details. Really curious to see how this turns out

Yep, to me this is the federal side of the multitude of lawsuits against OpenAI for IP infringement. This is going to be super interesting to watch out it turns out... so many implications for the technology.

That said - you already have companies like Adobe with their Firefly product attempting to offer reasonable terms and conditions for using their Generative AI products... so hopefully that is an indication of the market evolving to meet demand as well.

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