The FTC Is Disappearing Blog Posts About AI Published During Lina Khan’s Tenure

The Federal Trade Commission removed several blog posts in recent months about open source and potential risks to consumers from the rapid spread of commercial AI tools.

In late July 2024, Lina Khan, then the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, gave a speech at an event hosted by the San Francisco startup accelerator Y Combinator in which she positioned herself as an advocate for open source artificial intelligence.

The event took place as California lawmakers were considering a landmark bill called SB 1047 that would have imposed new testing and safety requirements on AI companies. Critics of the legislation, which was later vetoed by California governor Gavin Newsom, argued it would hamper the development and release of open source AI models. Khan called for a less restrictive approach and said that, with open models available to them, “smaller players can bring their ideas to market.”

In the days ...