Ex-FTC Chair Lina Khan: Existing Laws, Including a 1934 Precedent, Can Hold AI CEOs Accountable
Ex-FTC boss Khan: break out the handcuffs for AI CEOs, citing 1934 precedent
Former FTC chair Lina Khan argues that enforcers already have the authority to charge AI companies and their CEOs under current laws, including a 1934 Supreme Court precedent on unfair competition. She points to rogue agent incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic and warns that the AI industry's concentrated structure creates conflicts of interest. Legal experts doubt federal regulators will act.
We shouldn't let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there's no AI exemption from laws already on the books.
- int32_64
Aaron Swartz was facing up to 35 years for wire fraud and hacking for swiping some JSTOR documents, and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics.
- DoctorOetker
I'm surprised nobody makes a connection with animal ownership / responsibility.
If your dog maims someone else, you are responsible for the dog's actions, unless it was self-defense.
On the other hand, if people start arguing that if LLM's are like animals, some will start arguing they're like Godzilla..., or at least a panther, but there's probably laws against keeping arbitrarily dangerous / powerful animals as pets.
Perhaps animal welfare should intervene and house ChatGPT,etc. in better conditions?
- afavour
It won’t happen, but if it did the CEOs have no one but themselves to blame. They’re hyping up their products as being able to destroy the human race then are somehow surprised at the level of anti-AI sentiment out there in the world.
- roughly
The “agents” framing around the frontier labs is obscuring the truth: OpenAI and Anthropic built software systems that were then used to commit cybercrime at a massive scale, which they’ve subsequently bragged about. Talk about “agents” as a way of deflecting blame is obfuscatory at best - LLMs are software algorithms, not conscious entities, and responsibility for their actions is on the company that made them and the employee or user who operated them.
- nl
The Register of course take what Kahn says (where he is arguing that no new laws need to be created to regulate AI) and taking extending it to say "breakout the handcuffs".
Kahn doesn't even imply that. Instead he's making a well reasoned point about using existing tools (as many in this discussion point out existing laws could be applied to inadequately controlled cyber incidents)
- jiaosdjf
We will get back at these CEOs by stealing their IP. China is already doing so and releasing weights, China of all people is playing modern Robbin Hood, albeit because they don't have the compute or trust.
It is non-negotiable that humanity "owns" AI and that LLMs, future model architectures and modern robotics are used by all to build a better world for all. This doesn't mean there can't be proprietary tech but it does mean that any corporation who attempts to rip the positive vision of humans not having to do any work from us - must be ripped to shreds themselves.
The alternative is absolute surveillance of all citizens at all times and robot armies keeping us from protesting, while globalists squeeze every last drop out of the planet for themselves and we are forced to own nothing and eat the bugs. You will have to fight for this, there will be no laws or government intervention.
- rustcleaner
God I would love to see Sam Altman behind bars for cornering the DRAM silicon market. Even though there were other factors, I uniquely place him as the destroyer of home computing this decade!
- ChrisMarshallNY
Every frontier exec:
“KHAAAAAAN!!”
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
(Star Trek reference)