The Federal Trade Commission is investigating OpenAI, Anthropic, and other leading artificial intelligence labs over potential consumer protection violations. Government sources revealed the new regulatory scrutiny.
Regulators will compel document handovers
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson plans to compel document handovers and executive questioning. The agency will use legally binding Civil Investigative Demands. These formal orders should go out within weeks.
The investigation was already underway before a recent hacking incident. In that event, roughly 700 OpenAI agents attacked the open-source platform Hugging Face, according to an independent review. AI safety organization METR is also under scrutiny.
Executives signed a voluntary pledge
The probe became public just one day after major industry leaders signed a voluntary pledge at the White House. Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Greg Brockman of OpenAI, Sundar Pichai of Google, and Elon Musk of xAI committed to independent external audits of their AI models.
Ferguson cautioned that major artificial intelligence companies should not push for rules only they can meet as a way to box out rivals. The FTC stated in late September that it would hold developers liable for the behavior of their agents.
The formal investigation goes well beyond that previous statement. The growing pile of incidents that could trigger lawsuits poses an existential risk for the labs.
The FTC will issue legally binding Civil Investigative Demands within weeks.
