I think this a compelling argument that lots of smart people make and believe and I think it is just flatly wrong.
1. Anthropic — an AI lab that broke away from OpenAI bc of AI safety concerns many years ago — did suddenly not decide that AI safety was important, like, three days ago.
2. Rather than see the commercial viability of the open weight models causing the fears of RSI, I think one should consider that a third variable — AI progress — is leading to BOTH better open weight models AND greater AI automation/autonomy without alignment, and it’s freaking some people out.
There is a kind of UChicago/Wharton Brain approach to this story, which sees any effort to increase safety as a regulatory capture strategy. But at least consider the possibility that rising evidence of AI abilities and RSI might actually be scary to the people closest to the fire.