Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater said during a speech on Thursday that America First Antitrust can be used to ensure free information flows in American democracy and that artificial intelligence (AI) remains free of viewpoint bias.
Slater delivered the keynote speech at the Fordham Competition Law Institute’s 52nd Annual Conference on International Law and Policy on the intersection between competition, the burgeoning industry that is artificial intelligence, and free speech.
As the assistant attorney general tasked with handling the administration’s competition policy, Slater has long said that America First Antitrust is about empowering “America’s forgotten men and women.”
Noting that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance has made promoting AI a key part of their policy agenda, she said, “Prioritizing innovation, supporting new technologies and startups, keeping the markets open for competition — these have long been the secret sauce of Silicon Valley and the cornerstones of American economic success. And these same core principles are what will help America lead the global race for AI.”
Slater, who used to work for Vance when he was in the Senate, quoted the vice president’s March speech in Paris, France, which stated, “This administration will not be the one to snuff out the start-ups and the grad students producing some of the most groundbreaking applications of artificial intelligence. Instead, our laws will keep Big Tech, Little Tech, and all other developers on a level playing field.”
The assistant attorney general cautioned that AI may present a dangerous “concentration of control” that could surpass the danger Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas observed in 2021. However, she said that competition policy may prevent that concentration and ensure a “free flow of information.”
She said:
In a recent statement of interest, the Antitrust Division rejected the view that the antitrust laws play no part in protecting viewpoint competition in news markets.[13] Instead, antitrust can account for behavior that shuts out alternative, competing viewpoints. So too with AI. Ensuring that the AI markets are open to competition means that rivals with different approaches can compete on the merits. The availability of different AI systems and products can ensure that consumers have choices to pick from, safeguarding the free flow of information in our democracy. Different viewpoints can rise to the top in the marketplace of ideas. [Emphasis added]
“In sum, there is a great deal that antitrust law can do to deliver the competition and innovation that will usher in the next golden era of AI. Races are won, and records are broken, through rivals pushing each other to do better — in other words, real competition,” Slater concluded in her speech. “We will continue to fight for the competitive conditions needed to support American innovation and dominance in AI. And we will continue to support and play a role as needed in our Administration’s AI Action Plan.”
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