Sarah Cardell, head of the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), said the agency will review the technology behind software such as ChatGPT, including the “underlying models” and “how the marketplace around those models is developing. The agency will review the technology behind software such as ChatGPT, including the “underlying models” and “how the marketplace around those models is developing.
Cardell told the Financial Times that the CMA will assess “the real opportunities in this area” and “what kind of guardrails and principles we should have in place to ensure that competition works effectively and consumers are protected.
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Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission warned the industry that it is “highly concerned about how companies choose to use AI technologies, including new generative AI tools, in ways that have a real and significant impact on consumers.
The CEOs of AI companies including Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT developer OpenAI will also meet with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday to discuss the security of their products.
Cardell said the CMA’s “fact-finding” mission on artificial intelligence will allow “a large and diverse group of interested stakeholders, (including) businesses, academics and others, to gather rich and broad information. The review will not target “any particular company,” she said.
Large-scale AI models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and LaMDA behind Google’s Bard, are not only costly but also difficult to develop and run. As a result, they remain in the hands of a few companies like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as well-funded startups like Anthropic and Character.ai.
In response to the CMA’s decision last week to block Microsoft’s $75 billion acquisition of Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard, Cardell said the decision was made by an independent panel.
In response to Microsoft President Brad Smith, who accused the move of hindering technological innovation. Cardell said: “I think it’s the exact opposite …… I’ve talked to a lot of (startups) and what they really want is an open and free competitive marketplace where they can compete fairly and effectively.”
She added that the CMA is not “opposed to digital M&A,” but she also stressed that “there is a clear and fairly widespread recognition that there has historically been some poor enforcement in M&A, particularly in the technology sector.
Caddell said the new digital markets unit will decide which companies to tailor its rules to, based on its work assessing markets such as the cell phone product ecosystem. The regulator said in its final report last year that there was a strong case for specific codes of conduct against Apple and Google given their dominance in that market.
