The new proposal by the US Department of Justice as part of its anti-trust case against Google, targets the role of the tech giant in Artificial Intelligence. The filing forces Google to relieve already made investments in the competitor AI companies and also forbids it from investing in new ones.
The filing notes that these AI companies are the direct competitors of Google in search engines. Therefore, it intends to stop Google from using the direct influence it gains through simple investing in its competitors as a way for fair competition.
The DOJ filing focuses mainly on Anthropic, the creator of the Claude chatbot. Google has $2 billion worth of stake invested in it. If the proposal undergoes approval, Google will have to divest its investment in the San Francisco-based AI company within a period of 6 months.
Furthermore, the proposal also forces regulation for Google to make future investments in AI startups focusing on search or other AI technologies.
John Kwoka, an economics and antitrust professor at Northeastern University told Forbes that companies such as the search engine leader “are trying to seize control of the new technology and insulate themselves against displacement.” This is part of a forward-looking proposed remedy.” He also said that these antitrust regulatory measures are a “part of a forward-looking proposed remedy.”
The proposal also highlights the concerns about the exploitation of the creators’ content to train AI models by Google.
DOJ proposed that publishers and content creators have the full right to opt out of allowing their work to be used in this practice and Google shall not penalize anyone who will exercise this right. This means Google can’t reduce the visibility or limit the content, for instance, of YouTube creators in reaction.
The Chief Legal Officer at Google, Kent Walker refers to this proposal as an “extreme” measure in a blog post. He says this proposal intends to “chill our investment in artificial intelligence, perhaps the most important innovation of our time.”
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