alt Hacker NewsWait, are you trying to argue that regulatory capture isn't real, or that the federal government is trustworthy enough to itself to give monopoly control over AI development to?
Wait, are you trying to argue that regulatory capture isn't real, or that the federal government is trustworthy enough to itself to give monopoly control over AI development to?
Regulatory capture is a real phenomenon, but I highly doubt these incidents were faked in order to advance regulatory capture.
This type of elaborate conspiracy is improbable a priori, and it gets even less probable here, since it's such a silly strategy. For regulatory capture, you want to tell a story about how you're uniquely capable of delivering a safe product. Not a story about how "Woops we screwed up big time! But a less-regulated product from a smaller industry player saved the day!"
As OpenAI's chief scientist put it:
"Currently I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer. I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established. And I believe that international coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world."
https://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/
Announcing that "we have no idea WTF we are doing" is not exactly the move, if you want regulators to grant you privileged status. Realistically, it is more likely to e.g. create a harsher liability regime for you and your competitors, which is now being discussed by US senators.
As for the federal government trustworthiness point, that's a whole 'nother discussion. I'm usually quite pro-capitalism, but even I have to admit that this AI race is essentially a case of capitalism run amok. I wouldn't give the feds monopoly control though, I would tell the feds to shut it down, or something along those lines at least. This is an interesting site: https://pauseai.info/