Britain’s competition watchdog said Friday that it’s clearing Amazon’s partnership with artificial intelligence company Anthropic because the $4 billion deal didn’t qualify for further scrutiny.
The Competition and Markets Authority approval comes after it started looking into the deal, part of wider global scrutiny for the wave of investment from Big Tech companies into leading startups working on generative AI technology.
The watchdog found that San Francisco-based Anthropic’s revenue and its combined market share with Amazon in Britain were not big enough to require an in-depth investigation under the country’s merger rules.
“We welcome the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority decision acknowledging its lack of jurisdiction regarding this collaboration,” Amazon said in a statement. “By investing in Anthropic, we’re helping to spur entry and competition in generative AI.”
Under the deal, Anthropic is using Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider and Amazon’s custom chips to build, train and deploy its AI models.
The British regulator has previously cleared Microsoft’s partnership with French startup Mistral AI as well as its hiring of key staff from another startup, Inflection AI.
The watchdog is still scrutinizing a partnership between Anthropic and Google. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused heavily on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models.
The AI deals are also facing scrutiny across the Atlantic, where the Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether they’re helping tech giants gain an unfair advantage in the booming market for AI services.
Mark Zuckerberg faces deposition in AI copyright lawsuit from Sarah Silverman and other authors
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be deposed as part of a lawsuit brought by authors including comedian Sarah Silverman accusing the company of copyright infringement to train its artificial intelligence technology.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hixson rejected Meta's bid to bar the deposition of Zuckerberg in a decision Tuesday, saying there is sufficient evidence to show he is the "principal decision maker" for the company's AI platforms.
Meta had argued that Zuckerberg doesn't have unique knowledge of the company's AI operations and that the same information could be obtained from depositions with other employees.
The authors have "submitted evidence of his specific involvement in the company's AI initiatives," as well as his "direct supervision of Meta's AI products," Hixson wrote in a Tuesday ruling.
The class action lawsuit was filed last year in California federal court. The authors accuse Meta of illegally downloading digital copies of their books and using them — without consent or compensation — to train its AI platforms.
Also this week, prominent attorney David Boies joined the case on behalf of Silverman and the group of other plaintiffs that includes writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Boies is best known for representing Al Gore in the 2000 disputed election against George W. Bush.
The case against Meta is one of a set of similar lawsuits in San Francisco and New York against other AI chatbot developers including Anthropic, Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Read More