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There are many people who have some sort of half-baked "regulatory capture" theory. I find these theories kind of implausible. No US regulation will meaningfully stop open-weight Chinese models. At best you'll get legal restrictions for particular US industries which are especially risk-aware. The CEOs of those industries will counter-lobby to be able to use whatever model they want. Public opinion will most likely come down on the side of removing restrictions. Since there's plenty of public attention on this issue, achieving meaningful regulatory capture will be difficult.
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I wouldn't call it "half-baked" when it's a well known playbook regularly leveraged by large companies.

> At best you'll get legal restrictions for particular US industries which are especially risk-aware. The CEOs of those industries will counter-lobby to be able to use whatever model they want.

Companies won't spend the money and time to lobby to use different models and Anthropic knows it.

> Since there's plenty of public attention on this issue, achieving meaningful regulatory capture will be difficult.

I don't have high hopes. This is also why Anthropic is pushing the "regulate or ai will kill you" angle.


>I wouldn't call it "half-baked" when it's a well known playbook regularly leveraged by large companies.

Really? Give me some examples.

Alex Tabarrok says: "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." https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/wh...

AI is receiving intense public scrutiny, suggesting that "classic regulatory capture" is quite unlikely.

>Companies won't spend the money and time to lobby to use different models and Anthropic knows it.

They already are! See the "Little Tech" lobby.




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