They would be convincing the government these tools are extremely powerful, the government reads that as a potential weapon. They're also convincing the government its so dangerous the industry needs heavy regulation.
Investors read that as (a) the government would be a huge customer and (b) the government would be regulation in a way that prevents further competition and may deem the companies too big to fail, both making these safer investments rather than riskier ones.
[–] simianwords 20 hours ago
Motte (easy to defend claim) : asking for regulation might serve both purposes
Bailey (hard to defend claim) : companies are conspiring to make AI look way more powerful than it is and AI is actually not that powerful. They are just trying to hype up the stock valuation of their companies.
[–] _heimdall 19 hours ago
The former explanation may be the more accurate one, but I'd be shocked if the top leaders in these labs aren't doing this at some level. We know that almost all of them are in communication at least occasionally, and their public PR stories align much too quickly to truly be coincidence.
This "stunt" story is like an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine which requires a bunch of things to go just right. I haven't seen any evidence that stock prices even move in a favorable direction when these announcements come out. If anything, the opposite.