UK antitrust agency probes AI market as calls for regulation grow louder

The UK’s competition regulator has launched a review into the advancement of artificial intelligence, it confirmed today, amid growing concerns over its unchecked power to potentially overhaul the jobs market and spread misinformation.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the government-backed review will look at what risks AI tools could pose for consumers and competition.

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said AI had recently “burst into the public consciousness,” but that the technology had been “on our radar for some time.”

“It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information,” Cardell added. 

The announcement comes as the AI race heats up between tech giants like Microsoft and Google, who have been pouring money into the technology since OpenAI launched ChatGPT last Autumn. 

But industry leaders have also voiced concerns about its rapid, unchecked advancement, its ability to upend the jobs market or spread misinformation. 

An early pioneer of the technology, Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the “godfather of AI”, quit his role at Google this week, citing concerns about the technology’s ability to produce misinformation.

Last month, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said AI could be harmful if deployed incorrectly as he admitted society is not fully prepared for its advancement and called for regulation.

The CMA’s review also comes as regulators across the world announce plans to police AI.

The EU is looking to introduce new laws to regulate AI, with a committee of EU lawmakers set to vote on a draft proposal of the EU’s AI Act next week.

But the UK government said in its AI white paper in March that it would lean on regulators to understand and police AI.

“The UK is focused on regulators working together and offering support in this space,” Ivana Bartoletti, global chief privacy officer at the technology consulting service Wipro, said . “The European AI Act is very much considering AI as a standalone product and as a product, this needs some sort of controls and due diligence before going into the market.”

Katherine Kirrage, digital markets competition partner at Osborne Clarke, said: “We are not expecting cross-sector legislation like the EU’s AI Act in the UK – it is being left to regulators to use existing powers to deal with it.”

“So the announcement by the CMA isn’t the first and it won’t be the last,” she said.

Kirrage warned, however, that this fragmented approach could be challenging. “There are a lot of pieces to this regulatory jigsaw and it will take effort to ensure co-ordination, consistency and completeness in how AI is regulated in the UK.”

The CMA’s decision also comes after its announcement of a string of probes to crack down on big tech — including scuppering Microsoft’s $70bn deal to acquire Activision Blizzard — as the regulator becomes more heavy handed with firms.