[skybrian]

Regulation is not a blanket ban. Regulators (presumably government agencies) can review models (of any kind) and approve or ask for changes.

There are many other regulated industries, like drugs (the FDA), cars (NHTSA and EPA), airplanes and rocket launches (the FAA), radios (the FCC) and so on. That's not unusual. Regulation is normal for stuff that might be dangerous.

[sterlind]

cryptography, too. remember when that was regulated? strong cryptography had to be carefully controlled as a munition, for national security!

[skybrian]

Yes, I remember. But I don’t we should conclude that no program should ever be regulated.

[derbOac]

So the argument is now that intelligence is dangerous.

[fwn]

Regulations on forbidden numbers exist, but they are usually not a sensible policy and are not comparable to the regulation of rocket launchers.

[skybrian]

Thinking of files as “forbidden numbers” is too abstract a perspective to be useful. What’s in the file and how it will be interpreted matters.

A file might contain malware, child porn, or RNA sequences for viruses.