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As was pointed out by @confidentcrescent big companies typically start as small companies. And there are billions of dollars of capital potentially available to the right company (or wrong company) which shows promise. That's how the current frontrunners got there.
Not all hurdles can be solved by having a legal department. For example, suppose a license is required to buy more than a modest amount of computing power. And that license requires a background check and investigation of a company's investors and senior officers which takes 6 months or even a year. The delay and prospect of being investigated could easily scare off a lot of potential investors and/or founders.
None of the proposed regulations apply to small companies. They're about frontier training runs which cost many millions to billions of dollars.
If people are doing frontier training runs we indeed want to see them regulated, that's the point. Of course we should not do the regulation badly so that legitimate runs take months or years to get approved but you're just making a general argument against all regulation. These are big boy companies spending big boy money, we can let them speak for themselves.
If being investigated scares you off from being involved in building the kind of thing that has nation state hacking capabilities then I would call that mission accomplished.
I looked at just one proposed law and based on that I disagree with this claim, since the threshold includes affiliates. So for example, if Google acquires a substantial share of your AI startup, you're covered. Given that people create and invest in startups with the hope of being acquired, that's a significant issue. Of course that's looking at just one proposed law.
The thing is, I'm not making an argument for or against regulation. And in fact it might very well make sense to have these sorts of obstacles in place.
In substance, you asked what direct incentive the current leaders in the AI field would have to support these sorts of obstacles. And I answered that question. Whether certain obstacles would make for good public policy is an entirely different question, in my opinion.
It seems like you are addressing a different issue than what I am addressing, and for that reason it seems like it would be counterproductive to have further discussion.
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Yeah, I work in a startup at the moment and having to wait most of a year between demonstrating a proof-of-concept and getting the finalised contract to do the thing you'd already agreed to do is killer. How do you pay your engineers for the six months of no-fees? How do you get investment when you don't technically have a contract? It's a circular nightmare.
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