FTC Disappears Lina Khan’s Ideas on AI

Regardless of Vice President JD Vance and different “Khanservatives” amongst Republican ranks providing some reward for a way Lina Khan ran the Federal Commerce Fee throughout her time as company head, her positions are slowly being faraway from the company—each its working philosophy and it’s weblog. According to Wired, not less than three posts on AI-related matters on the FTC web site authored by Khan’s workers have been eliminated in current months.

In line with the report, a weblog submit titled “On Open-Weights Foundation Models,” by which Khan’s staff made the case that AI fashions must be open supply with the power for anybody to publicly evaluate its coaching weights, was eliminated someday in September. One other submit, credited to FTC technologists working underneath Khan, was titled “Consumers Are Voicing Concerns About AI” and tackled a number of potential harms from AI implimentation that would have an effect on shoppers. That and a 3rd submit, titled “AI and the Danger of Shopper Hurt,” had been eliminated someday in August.

An affordable assumption may be that the Trump administration merely not cares about these issues, or not less than doesn’t need its regulatory physique to supply something resembling resistance to tech companies that would love free reign to run their fashions as they want. It’s a bit odd, although, contemplating the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan announced earlier this year included a piece devoted to encouraging firms to open-source their fashions and echoed the Khan-era FTC’s language of “open weights.”

Nonetheless, the administration clearly has a extra hands-off method to dealing with these firms, and Republicans proceed to try to create loopholes and exemptions that may let AI companies take a look at their fashions and merchandise with out scrutiny of regulatory our bodies. As a substitute of issues concerning the implications of the know-how and the sector as an entire, the administation appears extra fascinated with choosing fights with particular firms, like AI Czar David Sacks’ current crusade against Anthropic.

It’s not the primary case of the Trump administration’s FTC wiping out prior positions on AI. In March of this 12 months, it deleted more than 300 posts from its website, most authored throughout Khan’s management, that had been crucial of massive tech companies and AI firms. Throughout that purge, Wired reported that the elimination of such posts with none effort to protect them may very well be a violation of the Federal Data Act and the Open Authorities Knowledge Act.

Gizmodo reached out to the FTC for remark, however solely obtained an automatic response from an company spokesperson: “I’m out of the workplace because of the authorities shutdown. I’m unable to answer your e-mail (or voicemail) till the federal government is funded, resumes operation, and I return to the workplace.” A spokesperson for Lina Khan stated that she has no remark presently.