A proposal to give leading artificial intelligence companies limited protection from antitrust rules so they can jointly develop safety standards is encountering resistance in Washington. Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei has called for a narrow antitrust waiver allowing competing AI developers to coordinate on safety measures without risking accusations of unlawful collusion, but lawmakers, regulators and some smaller technology companies have questioned whether such an arrangement could strengthen the industry’s largest players, according to The Hill. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said this week that companies simultaneously seeking new regulations and exemptions from antitrust law deserve heightened scrutiny, adding that his comments represented his personal view and did not specifically name Anthropic. “If companies are simultaneously coming to Washington and asking for a host of regulations and an antitrust exemption, all of my alarm bells go off,” Ferguson said Tuesday at Georgetown University, according to Reuters, arguing such measures could create barriers to entry that protect incumbent companies from emerging competitors. OpenAI global policy chief Chris Lehane said his company has already been discussing AI safety with Anthropic and Alphabet Inc.’s Google and does not believe an antitrust exemption is necessary for those conversations, according to reporting by Bloomberg cited by Reuters. Antitrust specialists have similarly argued that existing law may already leave room for companies to cooperate on legitimate safety concerns.