Jonathan Kanter, who served as antitrust chief for the US Department of Justice during the Biden administration, joined a Decoder podcast conversation to address mounting questions about artificial intelligence regulation and competition policy. Kanter currently holds positions as a professor of law at Washington University and a professor of technology policy at Carnegie Mellon. The discussion centers on a complex landscape where major AI developers have publicly called for regulatory frameworks and safety oversight, while simultaneously facing accusations of potential anticompetitive coordination.
The conversation addresses a central tension in current technology policy: whether requests from frontier AI companies for government regulation represent genuine safety concerns or constitute anticompetitive behavior. Leading AI organizations including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind have made public statements calling for measured development pacing and regulatory intervention. Simultaneously, questions have emerged about whether these companies are seeking antitrust exemptions that would allow coordinated behavior, attempting regulatory capture, or positioning themselves favorably ahead of potential public offerings.
Kanter’s analysis distinguishes between multiple possible interpretations of industry requests for regulation. From a generous perspective, major AI developers may genuinely fear that rapid innovation without clear regulatory guidelines creates uncertainty about appropriate development paths. From more skeptical viewpoints, the same requests could represent strategic positioning to constrain competition, particularly regarding less expensive alternatives from international competitors. Kanter emphasizes that regardless of the underlying motivations, providing antitrust exemptions would not constitute an appropriate policy response.
The interview also contextualizes these debates within the broader reboot of American antitrust enforcement. Kanter led significant antitrust cases against Google, Apple, and Ticketmaster during his tenure, working alongside Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan to reshape competition policy. The current regulatory environment reflects this shifted approach, creating an unusual political alignment where figures across the ideological spectrum—including libertarian former Trump AI official David Sacks—have agreed that AI safety concerns do not justify antitrust exemptions.
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