https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_champions
>Do they receive different legal treatment from other similar companies? If so, that would be a worrying signal. A common feature of fascism being present doesn't mean you've definitely got fascism, but it does raise a pretty big red flag.
They definitely get assistance from the government. Where that crosses into "different legal treatment" is up to you, though personally I think the distinction (if any) isn't really worth much. The original claim was "Most favored companies", not "are totally exempt from the law". In the case of openai, it's not really clear whether any laws have been broken, because despite all the cries over "they hacked people!", the question of intent would make any prosecution tricky. Not to mention there's similar cries about AI companies in general violating copyright laws, so if the implication is that openai gets to break laws scott free but anthropic doesn't, that really falls flat.
The issue is openai and anthropic both make similar products in similar ways and yet only one has been designated a “supply chain risk” for entirely opaque reasons that based on timing are probably just “they didn’t kowtow correctly”.
The gov putting their finger on the scales for the company that showed the most deference to them is not a good sign for democracy.