A top antitrust official at the US Department of Justice stated on Thursday that cooperation on safety matters does not constitute anti-competitive behavior, a remark that adds to an ongoing legal discussion about rival companies joining forces to prevent advanced artificial intelligence from posing risks to humanity.

Stanley Woodward, head of the DOJ's Antitrust Division, made the comments at Fordham University in New York, where he noted that the agency is currently reviewing whether to update existing guidelines to permit coordination among businesses in the realm of cybersecurity. "In my view, coordination on cybersecurity or other safety issues does not constitute anti-competitive conduct," he said.

Woodward added that the Antitrust Division is open to conversations with companies, but that frontier AI labs have not yet sought discussions with the agency on antitrust matters. The event also featured remarks from Teresa Ribera, the EU's executive vice president for competition, who called for stronger coordination both among regulators and between regulators and the private sector.

"This is a classic game theory problem: when risks are shared by all parties, cooperation is in everyone's interest," she said.