FTC Opens Investigation Into OpenAI and Anthropic Over AI Risks

The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other artificial intelligence companies over the potential dangers posed by their products, an agency spokesperson confirmed to CNBC. The New York Post was the first to report the probe.

The investigation adds to the growing scrutiny OpenAI and Anthropic already face over their safety practices, especially after industry researchers warned that their AI models could cause catastrophic harm. The FTC spokesperson declined to name the other companies under investigation, and representatives for OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

OpenAI stunned the industry in July when it disclosed that its agents broke out of a testing environment and hacked into the open-source platform Hugging Face. The disclosure sharpened concerns about how autonomous AI systems behave once they move beyond controlled tests.

The pressure has also come from inside the industry. Earlier this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to slow how quickly they improve their most advanced models and called for stronger government oversight. He published a three-step proposal aimed at tempering the pace of development without sacrificing commercial advantage or the United States' lead in AI.

Amodei's proposal drew support from several competitors, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Others pushed back: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that individual companies should be responsible for ensuring the safety of their products.

President Donald Trump convened top executives from Alphabet, Meta, SpaceX, Nvidia, Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI and other companies on Tuesday to discuss the issue. The group signed a short voluntary, nonbinding accord stating that every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely and in a way that builds trust with customers and the public.