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Biden’s ‘Antitrust Revolution’ Overlooks AI—at Americans’ Peril
Jul 27, 2021 2 mins, 6 secs
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Despite the executive orders and congressional hearings of the “ Biden antitrust revolution,” the most profound anti-competitive shift is happening under policymakers’ noses: the cornering of artificial intelligence and automation by a handful of tech companies.

The overall direction and net impact of AI sits on a knife's edge, unless AI R&D and applications are appropriately channeled with wider societal and economic benefits in mind.

A handful of US tech companies, including Amazon, Alibaba, Alphabet, Facebook, and Netflix, along with Chinese mega-players such as Baidu, are responsible for $2 of every $3 spent globally on AI.

Many of these are early-stage acquisitions, meaning the tech giants integrate the products from these companies into their own portfolios or take IP off the market if it doesn’t suit their strategic purposes and redeploy the talent.

Moreover, these companies have near-monopolies of data on key behavioral areas.

AI, arguably, could have more profound impact than social media, online retail, or app stores—the current targets of antitrust.

Biden's antitrust revolutionaries need a four-step plan to confront the AI revolution.

Tech antitrust action often occurs after it’s too late.

The economic impact can be broken down into the ways in which AI augments and substitutes existing activities and where it imposes negative social costs.

Third, regulators ought to scrutinize acquisitions of AI startups by the major tech companies more closely.

One involves getting the major tech companies to pool anonymized user data, in concert with a new Data Protection Agency that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has already proposed.

Yet another idea can be imported from India, where several major banks have started experimenting with “account aggregators,” which consolidate all of a user’s financial data in one place, so that they can open accounts and access financial services more efficiently.

The administration has leverage with the multiple antitrust actions against Big Tech under consideration.

This led to some of the most profound technological innovations in history–including the transistor, the solar cell, and the laser. Similar consent decrees with conditions on AI patents can be considered as a way of settling with the tech companies while utilizing their assets for advancing AI for the greater good.

We must get beyond considering antitrust in the rearview mirror.

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