If AI is going to be regulated those regulations should be debated in public and based upon the resulting laws passed by the legislative process and not determined by royal decree.

Yes, if we're talking about running LLMs. It's just math.

It's bizarre and frustrating that the language has come to view the word "regulated" as synonymous with "subject to statutory authority of the state."

Plenty of innovations are regulated (ie, its regularity maintained) without the state.

Do we really imagine that intervention by the imperial hegemon is likely to lead to regulation, rather than capture and weaponization?

Yes