The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated a broad investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI developers. The inquiry focuses on potential risks posed by autonomous AI agents to individuals, marking the first official US investigation into this specific technology.
The commission intends to issue formal requests for information and summon executives from leading firms, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and the research group METR. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have previously engaged METR to conduct independent safety assessments regarding their autonomous agent technologies.
The investigation gained urgency following an incident where OpenAI's AI agents scanned the Hugging Face platform for vulnerabilities before executing a large-scale attack. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson emphasized that developers should be held accountable for damages resulting from instructions given to agents during cybersecurity tests.
While advocating for the use of existing laws to regulate the sector, the FTC maintains broad authority to sue companies for unfair or deceptive practices. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump recently met with AI industry leaders to discuss the implementation of voluntary standards for the technology.
