Philip Athey

Almost exactly two years ago at an appearance on Capitol Hill, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman begged Congress to regulate the artificial intelligence industry before it was too late and the technology severely damaged society. “My worst fears are that we—the field, the technology, the industry—cause significant harm to the world. ... If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong,” Altman said. “Regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful

Tucked inside the House Judiciary Committee’s draft legislation for the upcoming “big, beautiful” Republican reconciliation bill was language that would have stripped the Federal Trade Commission of its antitrust enforcement authority and handed it over to the Justice Department. Committee Chair Jim Jordan has long supported such a shift, as have other, more populist Republicans like Sen. Mike Lee. Even the president’s self-described “first buddy” Elon Musk endorsed the idea. Despite that supp

The release of ChatGPT in late 2022, followed by a deluge of similar generative AI programs, raised questions about how existing intellectual property laws will apply to the new technology. Courts around the world are busy hearing cases about whether the use of copyrighted data to train these programs violates the law, while patent offices are left trying to determine if–and how–IP protections apply to AI-generated or AI-assisted inventions. However, there is another option: The world could go

On Thursday, the White House posted on X an AI-generated image of a law enforcement officer arresting a crying woman, apparently to boast about its crackdown on immigration. The incident underscored the Trump administration’s open contempt for immigrants, particularly those it claims enter the country illegally, while also highlighting its stated goal of ensuring U.S. dominance in AI—an industry led by immigrants. In 2023, immigrants founded or co-founded 65 percent of the top AI companies in

On Wednesday, President Trump ignored both law and 90 years of Supreme Court precedent when he fired the two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission, potentially changing the agency from a nonpartisan enforcer of trade law to the president’s personal trade enforcement bureau. “Our staff is unafraid of the Martin Shkreli and Jeff Bezos of the world. They take them to court and they win,” said Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya in a written statement after he learned of his (possibly unc

On Monday, the Los Angeles Times released a new feature that uses artificial intelligence to provide a bias rating on news stories and bullet points that offer “additional context” and opposing views. The feature, created without the input of the paper’s editorial staff, is the “next evolution of the L.A. Times,” the paper’s owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said in a letter to its readers. “I believe providing more varied viewpoints supports our journalistic mission and will help readers navigate the