Not necessarily. The Trump administration slapping export controls on Fable, and then setting up a pre-launch review process, is a kind of regulation. A fairly aggro and controversial one, even.
If this administration actually becomes convinced that some imminent training run is likely to kill everyone, why wouldn't they act?
The key is winning the debate that ASI is species-cide by default.
We have to win it either way, because the 2028 US elections have little or nothing to do with what Xi does.
Was that what that was about? Not punishing anthropic for denying them their killbots? Because it sure seemed like it was about punishing an entity that denied them something.
I didn't like it at the time either. My sense following the news was that it was less arbitrary than it seemed at first, but I'm against restrictions on making existing models public in general.
(It's clear now that they can do plenty of harm before they are made public.)
But it's a proof point that regulation is possible, even over the objections of the companies.
> My sense following the news was that it was less arbitrary than it seemed at first
What news have you seen that made it seem less like a retaliation?