A Right Too Expensive to Exercise Isn't a Right
The author argues that major AI labs are using safety regulations and API-only access to create a 'moat' that restricts user autonomy and open-source development. By lobbying for strict compute thresholds, these companies are effectively making local AI development legally and financially prohibitive.
Why it matters
This critique addresses the tension between corporate control of AI models and the democratic ideal of open-source software and user sovereignty.
Frontier labs are locking the strongest models behind metered APIs and lobbying that open weights are a security risk. Licenses won't stop that. Architecture might.
Can we still run the software we choose on hardware we own? That's no longer just an architecture question; it's a political one. Frontier labs now compete with their own users, because user autonomy threatens the moat.
Collusion or not, the playbook is a pincer: lock the strongest models in datacenters behind metered APIs, and lobby that open-weight models are dangerous, even a national-security problem.
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