Why is the little ol’ Competition & Markets Authority, a UK regulator, inserting itself into the entertaining and important – but distant – drama at San Francisco-based OpenAI? Even if the CMA finds eventually that Microsoft, another US company, is pulling the strings at Sam Altman’s show, what could it actually do? Doesn’t it all paint the UK as an unfriendly place for tech investment, notwithstanding Rishi Sunak’s eagerness to host AI summits and conduct cosy chats with Elon Musk?
All fair questions, and the CMA should brace for more in that vein. It is indeed slightly odd that the UK regulator is the first out of traps in wondering, albeit in a preliminary manner, if Microsoft has gained effective control over OpenAI and, if it has, whether that amounts to a problem. But there is another way to look at developments: thank goodness a regulator somewhere is seeking clarity about what just occurred at OpenAI.
