The Verge's Decoder published a conversation with Jonathan Kanter, the former antitrust chief of the US Department of Justice under the Biden administration. Kanter now holds professorships at Washington University in law and Carnegie Mellon in technology policy. The core concern: Big AI is replicating the monopoly patterns antitrust regulators have fought in prior tech cycles.

The backdrop is unusually loud. Researchers at Anthropic and Google DeepMind have quit publicly, citing real model threats and inadequate safety practices. Some researchers have placed the probability of AI causing mass harm above 10 percent. Meanwhile, the CEOs of major AI labs have simultaneously called for slowing development and requested antitrust exemptions, allowing competitors to coordinate without regulatory penalty.

That combination, safety alarm plus cartel ask, is the signal to watch. Kanter's framing turns the standard narrative: the labs are not asking for exemptions to protect users. They are asking for cover to coordinate among themselves. Regulators and operators building on top of these platforms should track whether exemption arguments gain traction in Washington. Distribution and compliance costs will shift depending on what Kanter's former colleagues at DOJ decide to do next.