Another, more cynical but I think plausible explanation is that a “slow down” is expectation management that that they are not going to keep having exponentially more machines available for training each next gen step (whether technical build-out or prohibitive cost, same outcome) so they can’t keep up the release pace. So spin a tale to make them seem more valuable ahead of IPO rather than make the markets antsy. That is, we have a slow down ahead, so use safety as an excuse…
The best way to cover up the point of diminishing returns when billions of dollars insist that it's only accelerating.
This is exactly what I think is happening.
All of this is not mutually exclusive with the models being dangerous, tho.