FTC chair Khan says more clarity, firepower needed for AI fight ahead

As the fight to understand and regulate artificial intelligence (AI) heats up, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairperson Lina Khan said Wednesday that while she appreciates Congress’s contributions to date, her agency will need further support to keep up with technological advances and properly protect American consumers.

“We’ve been grateful to Congress for increasing our budget so we’re able to do a lot more hiring being that it’s always good for Congress to be clarifying the law where needed,” Khan said. She added that, with the “significant interest bipartisan interest that we’ve seen in antitrust and digital markets, in privacy issues and security issues in AI, I think it would be really terrific for Congress to legislate and provide additional clarity.”

While Congress has increased the FTC’s budget, which has allowed for more hiring, Khan said there are still “huge asymmetries of resources” between the FTC and the private sector, making it difficult for the regulator to keep up with developments in AI.

Khan also told Politico antitrust reporter Josh Sisco during a panel for the publication’s AI & Technology Summit Wednesday that she’s thrilled to launch the agency’s new Office of Technology, but compared to smaller nations, the U.S.’s technology and privacy resources remain low.

“We’re still somewhere around 20 to 25 technologists overall,” Khan said, adding, “Our division of privacy is around 40 to 50 folks. If you compare that with jurisdictions like the U.K., [which are] much smaller, they have much larger privacy bureaus [than the U.S.]”

Khan also expanded on her call for Congress to provide more clarity, which she says would effectively protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices that may develop with the evolution of AI. Without that further clarity, the FTC has been using its existing statutory framework on unfair practices as a reference when regulating AI.

As they legislate, Khan urges Congress to keep the rules simple so that AI executives clearly understand what is and is not allowed. She argued that simplicity can be best, especially when dealing with something as new as AI.

“I think historically, we’ve seen that the rules that are most successful oftentimes are ones that are clear, and that are simple,” she said. “Rules about what practices are permitted, what practices are prohibited, I think could provide a lot more clarity and also be much more administrable.”

She also encouraged members of Congress to use the FTC as a resource when drafting legislation and working on potential AI regulation in the near future.

Wednesday’s conversation came in the wake of the FTC’s and a 17-state coalition’s antitrust lawsuit filed against Amazon on Tuesday.

Khan said the case is key in protecting American consumers. The FTC and the coalition have accused Amazon of being anticompetitive and alleged that the company has exploited consumers by raising fees while its quality of service decreases.

“This case is really about ensuring that the American public are getting to benefit from free and fair competition, which is what our antitrust laws are designed to protect,” Khan said.