Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s antitrust waiver proposal faces skepticism in Washington

Dario Amodei wants the biggest AI companies to sit in a room and hash out safety standards together. Washington’s antitrust cops would rather they didn’t. The Anthropic CEO published an essay on September 12 outlining what he calls “pacing the frontier,” a framework for keeping AI safety efforts in lockstep with the breakneck pace of capability development. The centerpiece: a request for a narrow antitrust waiver from the US government that would let competing AI firms coordinate on safety protocols without triggering legal liability. The proposal, and who’s not buying it Amodei’s essay laid out a three-part strategy. First, embed independent third-party evaluators inside AI labs to monitor safety and alignment work in real time. Second, establish coordinated safety standards among democratic nations. Third, open dialogue channels with authoritarian states, including China, to reduce the odds of a global AI arms race spiraling out of control. The first two pillars drew broad, if cautious, support from the industry. The antitrust waiver did not. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson weighed in on September 15 with pointed skepticism. His concern is straightforward: granting antitrust exemptions...