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As far as the stock market is concerned, attempts by competition regulators to restrain the power of big tech have invariably been a case of too little, too late.
对股市而言，竞争监管机构限制大型科技公司权力的努力总是力度太小、动作太迟。
That was evident again this week as Microsoft and Apple came under fire from a European Commission armed with new and more draconian regulatory powers. Both companies’ shares flirted with record highs as investors displayed their usual, sanguine response.
本周，微软和苹果受到拥有新的、更严厉监管权力的欧盟委员会的打击，再次证明了这一点。由于投资者表现出一如既往的乐观反应，这两家公司的股价都屡创新高。
The tech world moves too fast for regulators burdened with old theories of competition and weighed down by bureaucratic processes, they reckon (though the EU’s new Digital Markets Act is designed to change that). Even cases that have resulted in large fines haven’t forced any changes to the tech giant’s business models that would seriously weaken the power of their online platforms.
他们认为，对于背负着陈旧的竞争理论、受官僚程序拖累的监管机构来说，科技世界发展得太快——尽管欧盟新的《数字市场法》旨在改变这种状况。即使是导致巨额罚款的案件，也没有迫使科技巨头的商业模式发生任何严重削弱其在线平台权力的变化。
Those assumptions will be tested with a round of actions and investigations that target some of the core practices that have helped the biggest tech companies consolidate their power. And though the cases have been triggered by complaints that seem to have little relevance to new markets such as artificial intelligence, they could still establish important principles.
这些假设将受到一系列行动和调查的考验，这些行动和调查针对的是帮助大型科技公司巩固其权力的一些核心做法。尽管这些案件是由似乎与人工智能等新市场无关的投诉引发的，但它们仍然可以确立重要的原则。
This week’s cases in Brussels included the old charge that Microsoft unfairly targeted rivals such as Slack and Zoom by including its Teams collaboration free of charge in the Office suite of productivity apps. This hardly feels like a pressing issue in today’s tech world. It is seven years since Teams was bundled with Office and four since Slack complained to regulators.
本周在布鲁塞尔的案件包括对微软的旧指控，即微软将其Teams协作工具免费包含在Office办公应用套件中，不公平地打击了Slack和Zoom等竞争对手。在当今的科技界，这几乎不像是一个紧迫的问题。Teams与Office捆绑已有7年，Slack向监管机构投诉已有4年。
The preliminary complaint that Brussels levelled against Apple also had a historic feel to it. It was brought under the EU’s DMA, which came into force in March, but turns on the same disputed App Store rule that already resulted in a €1.8bn fine against the iPhone maker under earlier EU rules.
欧盟对苹果提出的初步诉讼也有一种历史感。它是根据今年3月生效的欧盟DMA提出的，但它针对的是同样的有争议的App Store规则，根据早先的欧盟规则，苹果已经被处以18亿欧元的罚款。
All this has left the sense that regulators are fighting the last war. The focus of competition has moved on to new battlegrounds. Yet these cases get at business practices that will also shape new markets, including AI.
所有这些都让人感觉到监管机构正在打上一场战争。竞争的焦点已经转移到了新的战场。然而，这些案例涉及的商业行为也将塑造包括人工智能在内的新市场。
Microsoft’s use of bundling, for instance, has long been one of its most powerful business weapons, while Apple’s App Store restrictions on developers have cemented the power of its mobile platform.
例如，微软的捆绑销售一直是其最强大的商业武器之一，而苹果的App Store对开发者的限制巩固了其移动平台的权力。
Other investigations announced earlier this year under the new DMA targets other core practices, including Google’s ability to direct search engine users to its other in-house services (something that has been on Brussels’ radar since it first opened an investigation into online comparison shopping 14 years ago). It is also probing Meta’s take-it-or-leave-it requirement for users to accept all the company’s data practices if they don’t want to take up a new option to pay for its services in the EU.
今年早些时候根据新的DMA宣布的调查还针对其他核心做法，包括谷歌引导搜索引擎用户使用其他内部服务的能力（自14年前布鲁塞尔首次对在线比较购物展开调查以来，布鲁塞尔就一直在关注这一问题）。布鲁塞尔还在调查Meta的“要么接受，要么离开”要求，即如果用户不愿意接受在欧盟境内为其服务付费的新选项，就必须接受该公司的所有数据处理方式。
This more activist attempt to tackle central parts of the tech giants’ business models has been echoed in the US. A judge is set to deliver his judgment soon on the Department of Justice’s claim that Google unfairly monopolised control of distribution for its search engine, including paying billions of dollars a year to have its service featured prominently on Apple’s devices.
这种解决科技巨头商业模式核心问题的更激进的尝试在美国也得到了响应。美国司法部指控谷歌不公平地垄断了其搜索引擎的分销控制权，包括每年支付数十亿美元让其服务在苹果设备上占据显著位置，一名法官将很快就这一指控作出判决。
The regulators still have a long way to go to prevail in these cases, including against the inevitable legal appeals, and, if they win, will need to come up with effective sanctions. But the success of actions such as these is likely to play a key role in determining how disruptive the rise of AI turns out to be for today’s tech giants. As things stand, their control of networks spanning billions of people and the troves of personal data they hold present a daunting barrier to upstarts.
要在这些案件中获胜，监管机构还有很长的路要走，包括应对不可避免的法律上诉，而且如果他们赢了，还需要拿出有效的制裁措施。但这类行动的成功很可能在决定人工智能崛起对当今科技巨头的颠覆程度方面发挥关键作用。从目前的情况来看，它们对覆盖数十亿人的网络的控制，以及它们所掌握的大量个人数据，对初创企业来说是一道令人生畏的障碍。
That has made it possible for companies like Apple and Meta to treat generative AI as just another tech ingredient, something they can use to add new features to their existing services.
这使得苹果和Meta等公司有可能将生成式人工智能视为另一种技术成分，可以用来为现有服务添加新功能。
As things stand, AI start-ups have had little choice but to play by the big companies’ rules. OpenAI, for instance, has aligned itself with Microsoft as a big investor and business partner and negotiated a deal to put ChatGPT in front of Apple’s users. But it also has more disruptive ideas: an app store of its own that would create an entirely new platform for developers looking to harness the power of large language models, for instance, and an expansion of ChatGPT for businesses that puts it into direct competition with Microsoft.
从目前的情况来看，人工智能初创企业别无选择，只能按照大公司的规则行事。例如，OpenAI已经与微软结盟，作为重要的投资者和业务合作伙伴，并通过谈判达成协议，让苹果用户可以使用ChatGPT。但它也有更具颠覆性的想法：例如，建立自己的应用商店，为希望利用大型语言模型的强大能力的开发者创建一个全新的平台；将ChatGPT扩展到企业市场，与微软直接竞争。
Tech’s AI wave is only just beginning. How it develops will depend greatly on regulators’ success at picking apart some of the practices that have shored up today’s giants.
科技界的人工智能浪潮才刚刚开始。它将如何发展，在很大程度上取决于监管机构能否成功地剔除一些支撑当今巨头的做法。
