This also means Chinese models are almost certainly going to be restricted in some way - possibly even banned - in the West. Right now they're roughly nine months behind. If every American frontier release is forced into a slow, staggered rollout from now on, they'll start closing that gap immediately. Over time, this destroys Western labs business models, because users will eventually have access to genuinely equivalent open-source alternatives - and in time, even better ones! The US government will not allow that to happen. The only way to prevent it is if China agrees to the same staggered release schedule (unlikely but I suppose it's possible), keeping the gap roughly where it is today. Otherwise, the US will likely restrict or ban Chinese models. There's probably a nine-month window, at most, probably a lot less, before one of those outcomes plays out.
For the people saying this is a pause, or a victory for safety, it is not. This does not slow development in any way, it only slows the rate at which the labs can 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 models, not how fast they can train them. The gap between what is available to the public, and what the labs have internally, will steadily widen from this day forward. This actually makes no one happy. The old 'AGI has been developed internally' joke will absolutely come true now though, long before it is available to the public.
