To carnegie and thanks to chair khan. First of all i want to amplify a few thickus said. There was so much in that speech. You know the idea that resiliency matters. Had an efficiency model for the last 40 years or so ealy in our economy which is about sending things wherever its cheaper, that rules in a lot of concentration a lot of siloing. We discovered in the pan tell democrat pab democratic that this has vulnerabilities. This comes with limits. Chips is a great you mentioned chips as a great exale. Always kind of amazing to me as somebody who has traveled a lot in asia, covered global business, that anybody not just the u. S. But china or europe, thought that having 92 of all high End Semiconductors in one highly geopolitically contentious island was a good idea. Im curious, as you think through the paradigm youre bringing to antitrust, where do you see some of those choke points now . Where do you see shove those places out there in the supply chains for defense but also in our industrial comments . In data . That you are concerned about thinking about. Yeah, i mean its real quite prif lent. I think much more than, you know should give us comfort. In our work we ealy see it in parts of the digital economy. But also in all sorts of more routine areas like baby form lavment a couple of years ago you know, when americans were waking up and finding they couldnt find baby formula on their shelves the f. T. C. Launched a study to figure out what are the root causes of this . Significant concentrations such that when you had a single bout of con testimony nation at a single factory it ended up having ripple effects. I think more generally weve seen some of the risks of concentration in cloud. In the sector. Where at various points a single outage can result in pars of internet being down. The f. T. C. In particular has also been looking at the Cloud Computing sector and trying to understand whats the Market Structure here. Whats leading to decent amount of concentration, is it just that there are such high fixed costs here. Such economies of scale. Or could there also be potentially anticompetitive tactics keeping this market less competitive . And what are the downstream risks of concentration . Be it for businesses that depend on these technologies and might wake up one day to see that their Cloud Computing costs have soared overnight, who might struggle to be transporting their data between different class computing company, but also from a Data Security perspective, its paramount that weve seen that concentrating data especially when you have so many Cyber Security risks can leavedata exposed be it at equifax or other areas. Thats important, can people hear me . Thats an important point. When i talked to the pentagon and the Security Community in general i hear discussion aboutcentralization as a way of creating more robustness. As a way of creating more resiliency. Last lot of concern that that kind of heavy concentration one and done putting all your eggs in one basket, as you said. Theres also counterargument which you looked at that as we move into a world of into a world where, you know, wars are going to be fought in cyberspace, in data and data becomes more importanw that National Champions have this new role. That this time is different. To use a phrase that i hate. But ill put forward that argument and i want to hear what you would say about it. The argument that i hear is that masses of data simply matter when youre thinking about things like a. I. China for example, a state that has no assumptions of privacy you can gather data at will, the state has control a lot of Big Tech Companies, a lot of people that run them and back them and lobby for them, would make that argument. Is a. I. Different . Is big tech different in some fundamental way . Based on our experience historically there are significant risk wednesday you concentrate so much production or are so reliant on a small number of companies. Some of these risks are intrinsic. Some are more in terms of whether these corporate actors are really able to be good proxies and faithful proxies for u. S. Interests when their entangle. S may be all over the place. And a more fundamental level the f. T. C. Has been taking a look across the a. I. Stack from the chips to the cloud to the models to the downstream applications and figuring out, you know, what is the Market Structure that were turnery seeing in each of these layers. What are the factors that are the concentration. Historically even when weve had parts of the economy that are highly concentrated likehe railroad, like Certain Telecommunications infrastructure. What weve done is applied certain rules that limit those infrastructure firms from using their power in abusive ways. I think this is a key miami for us to be understanding what are the Properties Across each of these layers. Do we think antitrust and competition will be sufficient to discipline market power and the abuses that can follow . Or do we need an additional set of policy tools and levers of the time we traditionally applied in somewhere of the infrastructure markets . I want to dig into two pieces of that. Well have lots of time for questions and well take them virtually too. Well open it up in about 15 or in about 10 or 15 minutes. This idea that companies are not country, nor should they be really, thats fundamental. How can we expect them when they are in, many big multinationals are in 100 mark, 120 markets. A lot of them are in china. A lot of Big Tech Companies would like more business in china. How can we couldnt count on them being National Champions even fa that were an argument were willing to accept. Its also interesting because if companies become National Champions there would be more limits on or couldnt do overseas, yeah . Is that something orr hearing . What sides of that argument resonate to you . E seen Companies Want to have it both ways where they beth want the freedom that comes with being a National Champion and skirting, you know regulation or antitrust enforcement but then not also wanting to sign up with the limbs that would come with the obligations andbeing more faithful stewards of american interests. So you know, unfortunately, i think we see some of that opportunism in made. I want to talk a little bit about ecosystems. You were talking a little bit about the impact of concentratns downstream on consumers but also on markets. Something i have seen in my 33 years of reporting, a lot of it on the when you get concentration and you get a lot of, lets say offshoring of production, taiwan chips would be a great example. Youre then taking abentire ecosystem and you need iteration. You need a lot of pieces working together in order to innovate. Were now at this point in the u. S. Trying to rebuild the chips industry. Not so easy to rebuild from something im concerned about right now, i see private Equity Companies trying to wrap up a lot of small, mid sized private Industrial Companies that may be part of the green transition or some of the reindustrialization that might be part of our future here in the s. What do you think about that . How do you think about concentration and the overall industrial common, data commons and ecosystem . I think one of the most innovative and impact. Parts of this adm is the industrial position and theless involvement by government can have less enforcement and we should use that as a tool to shape innovation and Technological Developments in the direction we dermined the nations interest rather than assume theres no role for us to be playing and these are all just the outcomes of free market forces. So i think thats the really important pivot and we see right now the result of that in action. Right . Terms of the efforts to be really encouraging production and manufacturing in america. You know, the f. T. C. Plays a an adjacent rol of making sure that companies that are making their products in america are not losing out business to firms that are lying ab many. Or for example if were giving out enormous subsidies or grants to try to incentivize Domestic Production that we have markets where those newcomers can thrive and compete. One area, a little outside of what were discussing, was where the administration handed out a lot of funds has been agriculture. Where weve seen small and mediumsized Business Operations get support from the government in order to try to create more competition in the market. We need to make sure that in order for that to work, these small and medium sized operations are not coerced or muscled out of the market through mo knopp olistic tactics. So you see how antitrust policies is a really key complement to making sure some of our industrial policy or other Economic Policy goals are advanced. Its anyone, i think agriculture has a lot to do with security. Im remembering a piece i did about a woman at darpa who is running a program to decentralize food scorsing because of what youre saying. We all felt that interestingly during the pandemic. Everybody had the bizarreo sense of restaurants are empty yet you cant get what you want in the grocery store. Very supply chains theyre not talking to each other. Thats kind of what youre getting at. I think youre absolute liely right, all these pieces are interconnected in some fundamental way. Am i going to see question time up here on the screen . Im not wearing a watch, you guys have to prompt me. Four minutes. Ok, four minutes to questions. Be sure to get your questions. I forgot my watch today. I want to bring up an idea im hearing a lot in europe, i work if a british publication. Europeans, particularly small european nations but also allies and smaller nations in asia get very very worried when they think in this new post neoliberal world theyve got two choices. China,er tboogle. That worries them. So how do you think about that . And also theres been a little bit of a pause on this conversation but late last year there was going to be a conversation between the e. U. And thelean Energy Supply chains, coming up with new paradigms. What kind of interactions do you have with that conversation . As a general matter what i think is important about competition and antitrust its about oxygen ating the market and joks yes nateing the oxygenating the market and opening up the market. Opening up the market will allow the next step of innovators to come in and enter and compete on the merits. I think promoting be entirely aligned with countries making sure they have more options. I have several more questions i want to ask. I want to start opening up and hopefully figure out how to get to virtual questions. We have a mic in here, does anybody want to start . And if you can just, were on the a question over here. You can just say your name an affiliation, please. Im roger, an editorial contributor on tech knoll and space policy for the hail newspaper. I have recent hi been trying to understand an f. T. C. Approach to Artificial Intelligence. This is not on antitrust but itsn. It applies across the board to many systems. My question is, you should what circumstances should the exact same activity, if its committed by a natural human being using no Artificial Intelligence versus the exact same committed by a natural human being using Artificial Intelligence be treated differently or punished differently in in other words a deceptive impersonation is something thats been used in marketing and politics since ancient rome and greece. You know theres a wide range of things you can easily imagine wh identical from the point of view of the recipient if its done by a human impersonator. So my impression is the f. T. C. Has gone down the path of treating the use of Artificial Intelligence sort of the way we do the use of a gun in a robbery or Something Like that. Its a different category if you use art its the exact same thing as if one didnt use it. Could you distinction wirn between the distinguish between the activities that require separate more punishment, if Artificial Intelligence is used . Thank you. Theres a broader policy conversation going on in congress and elsewhere to figure out what is the right Liability Regime for a. I. Given that were going to face some of the very issues you identified from the perspective of the f. T. C. We have been focused on making sure that firms know theres no a. I. Exemption from the laws on the books. So if you use a. I. To engage in price fixing if you use a. I. To engage in fraud, price fixing and fraud are illegal under the law. Using ample i. Doesnt get you some impersonation is one of the impersonation fraud someone of the largest sources of fraud we get every year. Even prixa. I. Tools, becoming more widely used. So people pretending to be the government, the inch r. S. , people pretenning to be legitimateusinesses. And so weve been, you know, proposing a rule to make sure that we can actually go after that type of impersonation fraud and levy Civil Penalties and create deterrents. Weve thought to modify that rule further to make sure recovering impersonation of individuals. Because we know with voice cloning, these types of impersonations of everyday people is becoming much more common as well. Were very actively trying to figure out how do we update our tool kit to start addressing the kind of new a. I. Tactics were going to be seeing in the marketplace. I think theres more for congress to be doing as well. Theres a good question here virtually. We have several hundred, i think, virtual parties pans. Maintaining americas position amidst geopolitical rivalries requires a comprehensive approach. How do we balance regulation and legislation to ensure American Growth and dominance on the global stage . I heard you in the speech saying allowing competition you feel, is the way to competitiveness and security. But maybe you can talk a little by about the idea of a comprehensive approach and have you in the time that youve been doing this job had particular tension points where you saw something in the market that, kosh, i would like to clamp down on this but what will the second or tertiary be for security or competitiveness . I think we see arguments made about potential tradeoffs between competition and opening effects on data privacy or security. I think in practice, you know, the f. T. C. Always tries to understand are theseretextual arguments or is there a real tension . We have technologists on board so we can pressure test some of those arguments more. Its a casebycase determination. I think more generally one area where i think we see a lot of alignment is on this issue of data privacy and kata security. So in the u. S. , its really the f. T. C. Thats on the frontlines of enforcing our existing laws that cover data privacy and Data Security protections. Weve really seen that its been a wild, wild west out there. Data brokercosystem that we have means that people very personal, intimate information is being freely trafficked. So somebodys precise location, their Sensitive Health data, their browsing data. There was Research Last year that found that if you were abroad you could, without too much difficulty, actually buy very Sensitive Data on u. S. Military members. In ways that people worried could, you know, be susceptible to bckmail and really challenging situations. So i think weve seen and the administration has recognized that having very few regulations on data privacy and security is actually creating much more risk. The president recently issued a Data Security executive order thats very attentive to these risks. As you know, charging agencies across the federal government to be thinking about how do protect americans data from foreign adversaries . I think thats an area where we see more alignment even though sometimes the argues that get made are in the other direction. It does take a little more whole of government, holistic approach as did the biden jicial e. O. Around competition in july 2021, which was about lets get everybody working together within government on these issues. Do you speak to folks in the Security Community do you speak to n. S. C. Are you having a conversation about this stuff with them . Yeah, were in pretty regular contact with them in all sorts of areas. We were specifically mentioned in that e. O. , Data Security is obvious but very regular conversations on a whole host of issues. Weve worked closely with the department of defense. Any time where were reviewing a Defense Industry merger and so when we blocking the lockheed aerojet merger reflected a close work with them. From their understanding what would the impact of this deal be . The e approach is not just and ideal its happening in practice. Lets take another question from the audience. Right here in front. Thank you, i head a Public Policy group. Very nice to hear you today. A different level of something which im sure you will have talked about but you did not mention it is the practice that in the u. S. What we have seen largely was a very strong promotion of economic democracy all over the past. Lately this policy seems to be moving ahead of competition policy by the inflation chips act and so on. It is a little surprising but i suppose it has its own test. Having failed that, as tech grows, the return to capital and loi boar will converge. It is evident in the policies you spoke about in any part of the world. Now there is everincreasing quality and Economic Growth is not inclusive. Thats evident in the kind of support trump has been getting in the u. S. As aboutcome of this. What would you respond to that . Thats a lot. Its a really interesting point. In my conversations across the country ive also sensed when people feel like theyre not able to get a fair shake in markets, in our economy, that really does implicate their sense of democracy and whether government is working for them, right, in some fundamental way. So we do see that deep connection. This is where across the government weve seepivots in policy, right . Take ambassador Katherine Tai who has been eloquent about the shifting to a workercentered approach to trade policy, recognizing that if youre just focused on shortterm efficiency metrics that can really come at the expense of longterm stability and health domestically. I think thats one area where weve seen a reorientation based on our experience over the last couple of decades. But i think its something were seeing more broadly too. I want to amplify something the questioner said. I think the entire bargain, the neoliberal bargain, of cheap capital for cheap labor as long as prices are going down and share prices are going up. Thats board model. Thats not the new model, the president said that in his e. O. Were looking at a more holistic model, consumers, workers, businesses of all sizes. Its an to come back to the point about that. Let me come over here and see if there are questions on this side. Im michael nelson, i work9e two floors up here at the carnegie endowmented on technology. If you read the Business Press you see a lot of stories about competition policy with bylines from here in washington and brussels. Theres a lot of other countries involved china u. K. , india japan. Im wondering as you look around the world if you see competition authorities that are doing some new, innovative, useful things . And shld get more attention. And then the other side are there places where you think, we have some real problems, some of these twice about the way theyre looking at antitrust issues . Thats a good question. The f. T. C. Has a long stapping history going back decades of, you know, working with cooperating with enforcers in other jurisdictions. Of course every jurisdiction has its own laws and policies, so every take theirs own independent action with the principles in mind. I think one thing that wasi joined the f. T. C. Was talking to enforcers in other countries was a sense that for the past couple of decades the message that some of these other enforcers had been hearing from the u. S. Was, you all are doing it all wrong and the best thing to do is to be more hands off. So we have been in a mode of exporting a more hands off approach to antitrust and competition policy. So as the pivot here domestically, i think its been really interesting for them to figure out what that means you know, more globally. But i think, you know, weve seen a lot of jurisdictions grapple with more challenges and questions around how does competition work in Digital Markets . How do we make sure were updating our tools and framework for thinking about competition ina; very high tech or fast moving sectors and some of the paradecisional smokestacks that. Type of shared learning and you know, erns appeara but ultimately everybody has their own laws. Ok. Im going to take one more audience and then ive got a last last question for you. The lady over here. Hello everyone, thank you for the session. Im with the financial times. I think much has been said about smort of a new era of cooperation between sort of both regulators on both sides of e atlantic with your arrival at the f. T. C. And jonathan canters appointment at the d. O. J. I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about that specifically in relation to a. I. Following a move that had been made on both this space, sort of the f. T. C. Launching an inquiry into the relationship between open a. I. And big players in tech but also e. U. Signaling theyre also looking at things like microsofts investment in open a. I. What are the conversations like now in that space for you specifically when it comes to rule making or enforcement more broadly . I think these are all fairly independent kind of organic areas of interest. The various jeurs dirks are pursuing. Of course were always really keen to know what are other enforcers learning so when we see a jurisdiction put out a report or study with their find wetion look at that very closely. Sometimes the facts on the ground will differ quite significantly based on which country youre on. We have to account for those distinctions. But i would say right now theres a general posture of curiosity and really wanting to make sure were sharing learned experiences and lessons. And i would say a sense that we want to learn from the missed opportunities of web 2. 0. So in the early 2000s there was a sense that digital marks are so fastmoving that if you are to see problems of market power that will selfcorrect so the best thing for the government to do is to get out of the way. Two decades on, i think weve seen that some of those assumptions were unfounded and if anything weve seen how Digital Markets can be much quicker to tip. How Network Effects involve reinforcing advantages ofopolies in way that invite greater government scrutiny and vigilance much earlier. So i think across jurisdictios fair to say that theres a sense we want to make sure were learning from those experiences as well. Weve got just a couple of minutes left. I want to cooked at in your speech and earlier in answer to a question about a sense of americans havingheir own communities. Its interesting to me that economic models that form the basis of a lot of policy still work on the idea that you can go, if you get tired fired tomorrow and walk across the street and get another job. How many people actually they they could walk across the street and et get another job. Maybe on k street you could but i dont know. Im fascinating by that and im fascinating by what i see in polls, gallup i think, say as many amecans see price gouging, corporate price gouging as being responsible for inflation as they do fiscal stimulus. Its right up so theres a sense of trust agency, belief in government, starting to dove tail with issues of antitrust which is maybe thought that 10 years ago. Seems like this was a wonky technocratic area. But how do you think about that . Any final thoughts on that . I think youre right that we wouldnt have seen that 10 years ago but we did see it 110 years ago. The election of 1912 in the United States was centered around the question of the monopoly problem. And a key issue on which different candidates had to share trues views was what are you going to do about the monopoly problem . I think there was a real sense that the monopoly problem had huge implications for people in their daytoday live, how much they were pay, how much they were making, but also in a more fundamental level whether decisions and outcomes many in peoples daytoday lives were being made through the arbitrary dictates i think one shift we have seen in the u. S. Over the last few years people are connecting the dots more and more between the decisions we are making here in d. C. In antitrust and hoich they are paying for meeds and switching jobs or locked in. It is like to navigate the health care system. This isnt just the inevitability but Legal Choices that we can make in one direction to favor a small set of interests or promote a more democratic approach. It is exciting to see a lot of engagement with the f. T. C. We proposed a rule that would eliminate noncompete clauses in employment contracts. On an average . Usually a few thousand max. The only other one where we had more was in the junk fees rule and got it to 60,000. A sense from people that poli would allow these noncompetes resulted in devastating effects in terms of people having to stay tied to toxic or abusive work environments, people having to commute hundreds of miles because noncompetes prevents them taking a job locally and there are labor markets and product markets and the results on innovation. So i think overall greater awareness in the choices we making affecting peoples lives and wanting to makelicy makers are held accountable. And it can evolve. Thank you so much for everything that you do. Thanks for the Great Questions from the awed audience. [applause] i would like to invite everybody into the lobby. Thank you so much for coming. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2024] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org. Fridayhts, watch cspans campaign trail, a weekly rally of that Weeks Campaign coverage to hear what candidates across the country are saying to voters including updated poll numbers and campaign ads. Watch cspan 2024 campaign trail friday night at 7 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan. Org, or cspan now download for free wherever you get your podcasts. Cspan. Your unfiltered view of politics. Ent. We are funded by these Television Companies and more, including mediacom. We believe that whether you live here or right here or way out in the middle of anywhere you should have access to fast reliable internet. That is why we are leading the way to get it to you. Mediaco with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to ho p s the bill now goes to the senate. F h. R. 7521 the protecting americans from foreign adversa