While the public focuses on AI's potential, a small group of tech leaders is using the current unregulated environment to amass unprecedented power and wealth. The federal government is even blocking state-level regulations, ensuring these few individuals gain extraordinary control.

The idea of nations collectively creating policies to slow AI development for safety is naive. Game theory dictates that the immense competitive advantage of achieving AGI first will drive nations and companies to race ahead, making any global regulatory agreement effectively unenforceable.

AI leaders aren't ignoring risks because they're malicious, but because they are trapped in a high-stakes competitive race. This "code red" environment incentivizes patching safety issues case-by-case rather than fundamentally re-architecting AI systems to be safe by construction.

Leading AI companies allegedly stoke fears of existential risk not for safety, but as a deliberate strategy to achieve regulatory capture. By promoting scary narratives, they advocate for complex pre-approval systems that would create insurmountable barriers for new startups, cementing their own market dominance.

The most significant barrier to creating a safer AI future is the pervasive narrative that its current trajectory is inevitable. The logic of "if I don't build it, someone else will" creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of recklessness, preventing the collective action needed to steer development.

The history of nuclear power, where regulation transformed an exponential growth curve into a flat S-curve, serves as a powerful warning for AI. This suggests that AI's biggest long-term hurdle may not be technical limits but regulatory intervention that stifles its potential for a "fast takeoff," effectively regulating it out of rapid adoption.

The push for AI regulation combines two groups: "Baptists" who genuinely fear its societal impact and call for controls, and "Bootleggers" (incumbent corporations) who cynically use that moral panic to push for regulations that create a government-protected, highly profitable cartel for themselves.

Regardless of potential dangers, AI will be developed relentlessly. Game theory dictates that any nation or company that pauses or slows down will be at a catastrophic disadvantage to competitors who don't. This competitive pressure ensures the technology will advance without brakes.

Advocating for a single national AI policy is often a strategic move by tech lobbyists and friendly politicians to preempt and invalidate stricter regulations emerging at the state level. Under the guise of creating a unified standard, this approach effectively ensures the actual policy is weak or non-existent, allowing the industry to operate with minimal oversight.