This obscure FTC proposal exposes the widening fight over what AI can say

The useful part

AI companies are increasingly being pulled into a fight over who gets to decide what their systems can and can't say. A little-noticed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposal is showing just how sprawling that fight has become. More than 300 public comments on the FTC's draft policy reveal deep concern about the government's role in policing speech, and about the geopolitical stakes of doing so.

How it works

• The policy targets speech that is "distorted by undisclosed ideological objectives" and "so-called 'equity'".
• Many influential industry, legal, and advocacy groups argued that the FTC is setting up its own lever to control what AI services say.
• A striking minority of the comments were preoccupied with China and its impact on American technology policy.
• China appears as a threat, as a justification for light-touch regulation for competitive reasons, as a foil for U.S.
• values, and as an accusation that the administration is pursuing censorship.

What to take from it

It compared the proposal to China's "censorship of its AI models which systematically refuse to engage with politically sensitive subjects including Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, and criticism of the Communist Party." <... Institute argued in its response to the FTC draft that content controls can amount to an exploitation of power concentration.

Details worth keeping

The comments reveal another force shaping the debate: anxiety over China. The policy was broadly panned by groups across the ideological spectrum.