People seem to have very small imaginations when it comes to thinking about how they might circumvent the restrictions they are proposing. I don't know of it's just wishful thinking, desperation, or what.
For example if OpenAI et al were reduced to using consumer gpus to run their training loads it would increase costs, but not by an order of magnitude. It would just be one more hurdle to overcome. And there are still so many applications of AI that would incentivize overcoming that hurdle.
As someone who works in medical research, I'm pretty sure it's possible to create a GM bacterial version of poppy's, just like we've got that for insulin, that would end the drug wars, by enabling hundreds of grams of the stuff to be produced in a single bottle that can be kept virtually anywhere (it has to be kept heated, and shaken from time to time).
Such a bottle's contents can be trivially duplicated and the whole process is essentially the same as the first steps in brewing beer.
Doing it for cocaine is simpler than doing it for insulin, which is in one university a second-year exercise. I don't think it'll be that long before this happens.
The drug wars are not because we can't produce enough drugs. I'm pretty sure we can grow enough poppies to kill all of humanity a few times over and at an insanely cheap price.
Carfentanil is a decent example of this. It's insanely potent and even a small amount smuggled in goes a long way.
For example if OpenAI et al were reduced to using consumer gpus to run their training loads it would increase costs, but not by an order of magnitude. It would just be one more hurdle to overcome. And there are still so many applications of AI that would incentivize overcoming that hurdle.