Civil society submission to the UK’s CMA on dangerous AI partnerships with Big Tech firms
The Balanced Economy Project has co-signed a joint submission to the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s review of partnerships between Big Tech firms and AI partnerships.
As the CMA’s own recent report on AI says, at least 90 partnerships already exist involving GAMMAN (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Nvidia) firms and Generative AI partners. These monopolists have already locked up huge swathes of the internet, and now they are moving fast to lock up AI, which will give them vastly expanded powers.
As regulators finally start to think more seriously about blocking mergers and even breaking up big tech firms, these monopolists are turning to use “partnership” models instead, to enable them to sidestep these essential moves. For example, just a few days ago the CMA found that Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI does not qualify for futher investigation.
It is urgent that action is taken. As our submission says:
“These “partnership” deals have different formal structures but they all reflect the same underlying strategy by Big Tech: to bring insurgent AI startups into their fold (and under their control) so that they never pose a serious competitive threat. Big Tech knows enforcers are watching: so they have carefully structured deals to avoid scrutiny. This gambit should not succeed.”
The submission is signed by a coalition of civil society groups that is concerned about growing corporate concentration in AI and in techology markets.