alt Hacker NewsConvincing the government to regulate their competition while lobbying for laxer requirements for the big guys who have government contracts and get/give kick-backs isn't a far fetched scenario at all considering it's literally happened over and over and over and over again.
It is a far-fetched scenario given the tremendous number of eyeballs on the AI industry.
"...classic regulatory capture takes time, it’s a process of erosion rather than a battle, it happens in the shadows, in the backrooms, away from the public’s eye. As Culpepper argues in Quiet Politics and Business Power, business power goes down as political salience goes up. Regulatory capture and lobbying does a good job explaining why roasting coffee beans was defined as “domestic manufacturing”, thereby lowering Starbuck’s tax rate by 2%. It does less well at explaining big cross-industry issues the public cares about such as environmental regulation or race and gender discrimination regulation."
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/wh...
A lot of these AI big shots were concerned about risk even before they started their current companies. Occam's Razor says they are expressing concern because they are still concerned.