Andrew N. Ferguson

And I think it was probably two years ago, I want to say, that I was introduced to the FTC chair.

I think, is it Andrew Ferguson? Is that it? Correct.

Yeah.

His name?

Federal Trade Commission chooses danger.

I am not going to pretend Andrew Ferguson actually thinks that leading AI labs working together on AI safety is suspicious or sounds like moat digging.

That view does not make physical sense.

This whole move is obviously bad for business.

Quote.

Maggie Eastland, Bloomberg: "U.S. antitrust regulators are already signaling their skepticism toward giving AI companies an exemption to coordinate on safety.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson said Tuesday he would be deeply suspicious of such requests.

Ferguson added that he sees the AI companies as asking for barriers to entry that will insulate their business from challengers.

Yeah, of course it will be.

And, you know, Chairman Bozeman has cabled a one-year delay in the implementation of of that cost share requirement for states that senator schiff is alluding to um so putting sort of a compromise and and an effort forward to try to achieve uh some consensus chairman bozeman has put that one year delay in the implementation of that snap cost share forward um you know really Uh, today chip, I think it is important step for the Senate ag committee to vote the bill out of committee.

Uh, certainly the return of Mitch McConnell, um, should afford the committee, the requisite votes to do that.

And I think that's our expectation for how things will play out this afternoon.

That's right.

That's absolutely right.

Um, chairman Thompson staffs in the house, uh, chairman Bozeman staff in the Senate, uh, and, and, you know, they're hopefully there are minority counterparts on the democratic side.

Those folks will all still be here.

Federal Trade Commission chooses danger.

I'm not going to pretend Andrew Ferguson actually thinks that leading AI labs working together on AI safety is suspicious or sounds like moat digging.

That view does not make physical sense.

This whole move is obviously bad for business.

Maggie

Eastland, Bloomberg U.S. antitrust regulators are already signaling their skepticism toward giving AI companies an exemption to coordinate on safety.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson said Tuesday he would be deeply suspicious of such requests.

Ferguson added that he sees the AI companies as asking for barriers to entry that will insulate their business from challenges.

Ese respaldo llegó el mismo día en que dos altos funcionarios de la administración Trump rechazaron con firmeza lo que los laboratorios de inteligencia artificial realmente están pidiendo.

El presidente de la FTC, Andrew Ferguson, dijo en la Universidad de Georgetown que las empresas que buscan simultáneamente nuevas regulaciones y exenciones antimonopolio deberían generar, en sus propias palabras, una profunda desconfianza en todos, señalando que están pidiendo barreras que protegen a los actores ya establecidos.

El secretario del Tesoro, Scott Bessent, dijo por separado ante una audiencia en la Cámara que los laboratorios de inteligencia artificial no deberían obtener los escudos de responsabilidad que están buscando.

OpenAI aclaró que no necesita una exención antimonopolio para coordinar trabajo en seguridad con Anthropic y Google DeepMind, tomando así distancia de la solicitud formal de exención presentada por Anthropic.

I hope that they do.

Andrew Ferguson was there as well.

We like Andrew.

We couldn't remember his name for a few months after they launched the task force, but we knew he was based.

This involves this whole concept of an aqua hire, where what you're seeing is you know these kind of licensing agreements or other deal structures where things are happening like employees moving from one company to another or ip moving from one company to another that might trig otherwise trigger you know some kind of a merger review under the hart scott rodino act but instead of filing for that review with the government They're structuring in such a way where it's not quite an acquisition, so they seem to be trying to get around that review by the government.

We had FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson was on Bloomberg TV this past January and really stated that his view that there was no need for companies to try to evade this process anymore, that the government was really open to working with companies to resolve issues they have around these things before having to proceed to litigation or something like that.

You know, it just seems to be a thread and a theme we're seeing here.

But even, you know, in the New York Times piece last evening that broke this story, sources speaking with the Times there indicated that any kind of unwinding of this licensing agreement is probably not on the table.