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Comment by Racing0461 | Hacker News Reader

Why? neither MSFT or OAI are monopolies in the AI space.

You don't need to be a monopoly to be engaging in anticompetitive practices. The ideal time for an antitrust action is before the trust has successfully eliminated all competing businesses.

I'm not even saying that OpenAI/MSFT are being anticompetitive, but I certainly see no problem with the FTC keeping an eye on them, especially given Microsoft's track record.

I was curious and their mission:

"is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission

So it could be antitrust or consumer protection.

On what planet are they ever going to eliminate other AI? Neither Amazon, nor Google are at any risk of going bankrupt, and I can say with 100% certainty both will continue to build their own AI while solvent. That’s to say nothing of competitors coming out of Europe and Asia.

You could have said the same thing about Windows Phone—Microsoft had every reason to keep trying to win this new market, and they certainly weren't going bankrupt, but eventually they had to concede it wasn't going to happen.

> Why? neither MSFT or OAI are monopolies in the AI space.

Microsoft is a monopoly in other spaces, and could be leveraging those monopolies and their partnership with OpenAI to monopolize parts of the AI space, which would be illegal even without having succeeded.

I am so tired of reading this.

You do not need to be a monopoly to engage in anticompetitive practices that are illegal.

Monopolization begins to matter more with things like mergers. It is not necessary for other illegal anticompetitive practices, such as price fixing, for example.

Collusion is illegal - full stop.

Because they are rapidly looking to build a monopoly. We are starting to see capital just take whatever it wants in all spaces. Early law didn’t anticipate this to this degree.

Early law didn't anticipate anything. Modern law can't keep up either.

Oh shit msft in its lifetime has never engaged in anti-competetitve practices. Same sentiment with the other reply. Tired of reading this.

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