Big Tech, AI and Competition Policy: Markets, Power and Innovation

Economic growth is highly dependent on technological innovation. But companies creating those innovations often develop and potentially abuse their competitive positions as they become larger and progressively more powerful. Today, global policy makers must continue to address and define the role of Big Tech in society (by which we mean the largest global digital technology companies and their supply chains). Big Tech companies are powerful, ubiquitous and evolving. But policymakers must also confront the possibility that threats to competition could also arise as innovative technologies are developed and evolve, especially in the AI space. 

The focus of the course on evolving competition trends in digital technologies and AI, will feature international comparisons of competition regimes, assessments of the ongoing global experiments in digital regulation and, more generally, case studies that confront relevant concepts derived from business, economics and law. We frame the course around three basic tools of competition policy: traditional antitrust/competition law, sectoral regulation aimed at information technology markets, and industrial policy, which can aid or harm competition. We will consider: 

• What does antitrust action around Big Tech teach policymakers about the evolution of competition in general and specifically in the AI space, the circumstances in which competition can be harmed and the resulting consequences for consumers, competition and societal innovation? 
• How do various jurisdictions approach the creation of digital/AI competition as a matter of regulation; what can we learn about the scope, goals and legal standards embodied in legislation in Europe, Japan and the United Kingdom and being considered in Australia, Brazil and India, among others? 
• How do the goals of industrial policy inform competition policy, and vice versa? What can we learn about the unintentional impact of certain industrial policies on competition and how can industrial policy be used in a manner that promotes competition? 
• From a competition perspective, how should jurisdictions view, protect, invest in and/or support national champions, especially AI? 

We will use modified, real-time case studies to understand multiple sides of policy questions in order to work towards solutions. We emphasize the importance of encouraging, and students offering, differing perspectives. Although the discussions inevitably touch on economics, business strategy and the law, we are not teaching any of those disciplines on a standalone basis. Rather we are teaching policy makers how to make use of those, and other, disciplines in their own decision-making. Thus, we will consider past events that may provide guidance in analyzing current and future trends, including how, as a matter of antitrust/competition policy, sectoral regulation, and industrial policy, governments have confronted such challenges in the past and what lessons that history offers for our future.