Decoder with Nilay Patel · Saturday, September 19, 2026
Jonathan Kanter distinguishes between legitimate collaboration in AI safety and actions that could form a cartel. He states that creating a clearinghouse for threat sharing is acceptable, but companies agreeing to slow down competition to avoid risks would implicate antitrust laws.
“So, for example, um, having a clearinghouse to properly share threats, um, um, malicious bots or other things that you can create a repository so that everyone could build safer products. Um, those are the kinds of um, collaborations that happen in other industries and you don't need an antitrust exemption because the antitrust laws don't prohibit that kind of work.”
“If two companies say we're competing too hard and we need to slow down, yes, that could implicate antitrust laws, but that's not what we should be doing here.”