Failures in the regulation of social media companies a generation ago must not be repeated
UK competition watchdog to review Microsoft and OpenAI partnership
Why is the little ol’ Competition & Markets Authority, a UK regulator, inserting itself into the entertaining and important – but distant – drama at San Francisco-based OpenAI? Even if the CMA finds eventually that Microsoft, another US company, is pulling the strings at Sam Altman’s show, what could it actually do? Doesn’t it all paint the UK as an unfriendly place for tech investment, notwithstanding Rishi Sunak’s eagerness to host AI summits and conduct cosy chats with Elon Musk?
All fair questions, and the CMA should brace for more in that vein. It is indeed slightly odd that the UK regulator is the first out of traps in wondering, albeit in a preliminary manner, if Microsoft has gained effective control over OpenAI and, if it has, whether that amounts to a problem. But there is another way to look at developments: thank goodness a regulator somewhere is seeking clarity about what just occurred at OpenAI.
About Author
More Stories
Memo to Trump: US telecoms is vulnerable to hackers. Please hang up and try again | John Naughton
Bizarre Australian mole even more unusual than first thought, new research reveals
Male mosquitoes to be genetically engineered to poison females with semen in Australian research