The Case Against Preemptive Antitrust in the Generative Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem
Abstract
Since the launch of the ChatGPT application in late 2022, the generative artificial intelligence (GAI) ecosystem has elicited scrutiny from competition regulators in the United States, European Union, and other jurisdictions. Relying on the assumption that digital platform markets are prone to converge on entrenched monopoly outcomes, some commentators and regulators favor intervening preemptively in the GAI ecosystem. This contribution assesses whether there are reasonable antitrust grounds for taking such action. Available evidence indicates that technically competitive entrants can generally secure access to the inputs required to achieve entry, including funding, semiconductors, cloud-computing services, datasets, and foundation models. Consistent with this view, entry into the models and applications segments of the GAI ecosystem is especially robust. Investments and alliances involving large technology platforms, venture-capital, and institutional investors, and model developers, which have elicited regulatory concern, currently appear to be efficient arrangements to aggregate the complementary assets required to produce GAI models and applications and face competition from other business models.