Last week, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission agreed to divide the responsibilities for investigating three of the U.S. companies that are at the cutting edge of developing artificial intelligence technology. The DOJ will take the lead on investigating possible antitrust wrongdoing by Nvidia. The FTC will look into the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI and whether the business dealings between the two companies are anti-competitive and signal illegal monopolization behavior.
Purportedly, the federal government is concerned about the large market shares the three companies possess in the fast-developing AI industry. But that can’t be the true reason for the investigations and the wide publicity regarding the division of responsibility between the DOJ and FTC. Antitrust law is very clear that large market dominance obtained through innovation cannot be characterized as illegal monopolization.
