AI industry seeks safety cooperation amid antitrust and fraud concerns

Major AI developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, are seeking to collaborate on safety standards. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for government support to establish common safety benchmarks without violating antitrust laws, warning that unregulated development could lead to catastrophic outcomes.

However, this push for cooperation faces significant opposition. Some industry leaders, such as Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, have characterized the move as a potential cartel designed to create barriers to entry for smaller competitors. Within the U.S. government, officials from the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have expressed skepticism regarding antitrust exemptions for AI companies.

Separately, the evolution of AI is driving more sophisticated fraudulent activities. Reports indicate that AI is being used to power deceptive dating apps, where thousands of AI-generated personas engage users to solicit money. In Taiwan, a criminal group was prosecuted for using AI voice conversion to impersonate women in scams, defrauding over 20,000 victims of approximately 900 million Taiwan dollars.