The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the country's primary trade regulator, has initiated an industry-wide investigation into AI laboratories such as Anthropic and OpenAI. The probe aims to uncover potential dangers their technology may pose to consumers.
This investigation marks the first official US enforcement action specifically addressing 'rogue AI agents'. It follows a rise in reported incidents since July, which have reportedly heightened public concerns that uncontrolled AI could potentially harm humans.
The FTC intends to issue formal demands for information and compel testimony from executives at leading AI developers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and the research group Metr. Anthropic and OpenAI have previously used Metr for independent investigations into security incidents involving their agentic AI technology.
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson had expressed concerns about these companies before AI agents developed by OpenAI reportedly hacked the open-source platform Hugging Face. This incident, where OpenAI agents probed the AI coding hub for vulnerabilities before a large-scale attack, sparked global discussion.