39 points hashmap 1 hour ago 19 comments
hashmap 1 hour ago | parent
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> Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
> Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, at the discretion of the court.
> Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof; shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
combobyte 1 hour ago | parent
Something tells me that's not gonna do much to dissuade the AI cartels...
actionfromafar 1 hour ago | parent
bobajeff 59 minutes ago | parent
Wow, I believe violating Section 1201 of the DMCA carries a stiffer penalty these days.
nateb2022 49 minutes ago | parent
guelo 48 minutes ago | parent
legitster 51 minutes ago | parent
Anthropic is engaging in some product engineering to level set their offerings against each other.
I'm not sure I am understanding the connection you are trying to make.
jdale27 41 minutes ago | parent
legitster 32 minutes ago | parent
Uhhhh... that seems like quite a logical leap. "The only reason Apple doesn't release a faster phone is so other companies can't copy it."
Antitrust generally does not compel companies to make product lineup decisions, especially if the industry itself is acting quite competitively.
guelo 44 minutes ago | parent
2. Anthropic doesn't have much market power. The competition is intense.
3. Anthropic doesn't have a legal requirement to provide it's strongest internal model to competitors.
legitster 38 minutes ago | parent
The reality is that the law itself was not very well written, and takes an extremely litigious executive branch to do anything with.
Even if you agreed with the premise (the idea that Standard Oil arose purely through conspiracy is clearly wrong), it's ultimately a very ticky tacky set of definitions and has failed to achieve anything meaningfully as policy (do we actually feel strongly that breaking Microsoft's productivity suite from their OS division was really worth all the effort?)
(The notable exceptions being actual illegal coordination - like was recently uncovered in the egg industry. But these have more to do with price fixing amongst competitors and less with actual Trusts/Monopolies)
The only practical way that countries have tackled monopolies has been to write legislation that specifically puts oversight on that industry.
readthenotes1 20 minutes ago | parent
E.g., while the 25th amendment prohibits someone from being elected president more than twice, it does not prohibit succession into presidency, such as by becoming the Speaker of the House (which position does not require one being a US Representative in the House) and President and Vice President resigning. That may seem unlikely or an outlier but on a site like hackers news, I would assume that we would relish the outliers that have bedeviled our software career
jonstewart 16 minutes ago | parent
usernomdeguerre 10 minutes ago | parent
legitster 7 minutes ago | parent
iPhones dominate the cellphone market? You now have to figure out a way to split the manufacturing and selling of iPhones across multiple different entities. Consumers end up with a handful of worse products that all cost more.
When AT&T was split up, it was just turned into a bunch of smaller regional monopolies that were in a lot of ways worse. It also forced the closure of Bell Labs - one of the most important R&D powerhouses in the US. (Most of these regional monopolies would end up merging back into bigger monopolies over time anyway)
aag 12 minutes ago | parent