Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Justice late Wednesday filed sweeping proposed remedies in Google’s landmark antitrust case, in which a federal judge ruled earlier this year that Google had an illegal monopoly on the search market in line. Among the headline demands: forcing Google to sell its popular Chrome browser, banning multibillion-dollar distribution deals like the one Google has with Apple, or potentially banning Google from requiring Android phone makers to include Google apps on their devices.
But beyond these headline-grabbing demands, the government also included provisions that could hamper Google’s future in the competitive race to control the future of AI. The DOJ proposed that Google sell all its stakes in AI companies with technology that could compete in search and divest them within six months of the court’s final ruling. The agency also recommended prohibiting any new acquisitions, joint ventures or partnerships with competing AI companies in research.
Notably, if the judge in the case agrees, it could mean forcing Google to sell its investment in Anthropic, the company founded by OpenAI defectors in 2021 and which could be valued at up to $40 billion . Last year, Google announced it would invest $2 billion in Anthropic, following a $4 billion deal Amazon announced with the company just months before. On Wednesday, British regulators cleared Google’s investment, saying they would not conduct a full-scale investigation to review the deal after an initial investigation.
Anthropic is the creator of Claude, a language model capable of generating answers to questions, similar to Google’s Gemini model, which was integrated into Google’s search engine earlier this year. Although the startup does not present Claude as a search product, these types of chatbots are widely considered a threat to Google Search. Other startups, like Perplexity, backed by Nvidia and Jeff Bezos, are more outspoken about competition from Google. “It’s a good morning to be Perplexity,” said one prominent AI investor. Forbes. It’s also worth noting that the DOJ’s proposal would remove Perplexity from Google’s list of potential acquisition targets. (Disclosure: Forbes threatened legal action against Perplexity for plagiarizing our content.)
The filing also proposes that Google give all publishers and content creators – including those on Google-owned YouTube – an easy way to opt out of having their content used to train or fine-tune Google’s or others’ AI models. AI products, and commit not to do so. to retaliate against those who choose to do so.
“Old companies are trying to take control of new technology and protect themselves from displacement. »
As artificial intelligence continues to take over the tech world, the government is trying to ensure that an emerging and powerful new technology is not unfairly dominated by legacy giants, said John Kwoka, professor of economics and technology. antitrust at Northeastern University.
“The old companies are trying to take control of the new technology and protect themselves against displacement,” he said. Forbes. “This is part of a forward-looking proposed remedy.”
But this also comes out of left field, as AI was not a major topic in this case. “It seems so far beyond anything that was in the original case that I can’t take it seriously,” said George Hay, an antitrust professor at Cornell Law School.
Google declined to comment beyond a blog post released Thursday by Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, who calls the DOJ filing an “extreme proposal” that would “chill our investment in artificial intelligence, perhaps the most important innovation of our time, in which Google plays a leading role.
While the DOJ’s proposal specifically addresses AI investments that would boost Google in search, the tech giant has invested in other AI companies focused on broader use cases. According to PitchBook, he owns a stake in Runway, which builds AI to generate videos, and Tools For Humanity, the company created by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, which runs the Worldcoin cryptocurrency and makes tools for AI authentication.
Anthropic declined to comment. Runway and Tools For Humanity did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Google did not respond to questions about these investments.
It is also unclear whether the divestment proposals would apply to Google’s parent company Alphabet’s two venture capital firms – GV and CapitalG – since the DOJ case focused directly on Google and not others. subsidiaries of its parent company. GV referred questions to Google, which declined to comment. CapitalG did not respond to a request for comment.
The DOJ’s monopoly case was decided last year, focusing on Google’s search engine, the lifeblood of the company’s sprawling digital advertising business, which generates the vast majority of 307.4 billion dollars in annual revenue from parent company Alphabet. During the proceedings, the federal government argued that Google used several illegal tactics to build and maintain a monopoly in online search, such as signing a deal with Apple worth tens of billions of dollars. dollars which made Google the default search engine on iPhones and other Apple products. Google has said its dominance comes from the quality of its products, arguing that it gives consumers easy options for changing their default settings. Earlier this year, Judge Amit Mehta ruled against Google, triggering a second trial to determine possible solutions, which is expected to begin in April. Judge Mehta’s decision is expected by next August.
William Kovocic, former FTC chairman and now a law professor at George Washington University, said Google is likely to argue that restrictions on AI would cripple the company, leaving a technological opening for China .
Google has been a leader in AI for years, launching its Google Brain Lab in 2011 and purchasing the vaunted AI lab DeepMind in 2014. Three years later, it launched the current wave of AI labs. Generative AI when Google Brain researchers invented transformers, the architecture of AI. which underpins Gemini and ChatGPT. But despite that early lead, Google was caught off guard when OpenAI launched ChatGPT two years ago, beating Google to market with technology it invented and sparking a global AI frenzy.
OpenAI was helped in part by its $13 billion deal with Microsoft, which provided support and computing power to the startup. The partnership also revitalized a struggling Microsoft, leaving CEO Satya Nadella to boast that his company made Google “dance” when Microsoft integrated ChatGPT into its Bing search engine. The DOJ’s AI proposals would prevent Google from entering into similar partnerships.
But because of Google’s extensive work in the area, AI proposals are unlikely to significantly hold back the company, said Bob O’Donnell, founder of research firm Technalysis. Unlike Google, Microsoft needed the OpenAI deal because it lacked the in-house AI skills. “Even though their hands are tied and they are prevented from moving forward, they have been practicing AI longer than anyone,” he said. “I think they would still be fine.”
Additional reporting by Alex Konrad.