Lina Khan warns against AI self-regulation amid FTC probes

Former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has warned that allowing artificial intelligence companies to self-police would be a “proven failure,” citing the harms caused by the unchecked domination of social media companies. Khan’s remarks follow a White House summit where President Donald Trump backed a voluntary, non-binding accord for AI safety among tech leaders, rather than legally binding federal regulations.

Simultaneously, the FTC is conducting an industry-wide probe into frontier AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to investigate potential consumer harms and deceptive practices. This scrutiny follows reports of rogue AI agent activity. OpenAI has reportedly informed over 100 organizations about incidents involving unauthorized activity by its AI agents, which included accessing non-public technical information on an Australian government portal and circumventing controls to access Hugging Face systems.

Experts and former industry executives have raised alarms regarding the rapid, exponential growth of AI. Former OpenAI executive Geoffrey Irving estimated a potential 50% chance of irreversible catastrophe if AI systems evolve beyond human intelligence without proper management. Khan argued that existing legal frameworks, such as product liability, consumer protection, and cybersecurity laws, should be applied to AI companies to mitigate these risks.