Anthropic, the AI firm behind "Claude", released an even better model called "Fable" in June. However, this was a blink-and-you-miss-it event, as the US government had effectively banned its use 3 days later. Is this the best way to regulate AI?
It isn't actually a total ban that has been imposed, but it has been banned for non US citizens. However, Anthropic don't have any systems in place to prove something like this, and even if they did, they'd be in the position that some of their own employees wouldn't be able to work on and use the technology. This means that they've had to block access to this model in all cases.
It is rumoured that the nominal reason for this ban is that an Amazon employee found a way to get it to look for security flaws in a system by claiming they owned that system (and therefore convincing the AI that it was performing a security audit rather than a potental attack).
So is this "AI Regulation" in action? Well, perhaps. However, it is likely worse than pointless from a US perspective. If they were the only providers of this technology, then bans like this may work. However, China and others are also working on similar systems, and they are unlikely to be placing similar restrictions on it. They will likely to be more than happy for funds to be diverted from US companies to Chinese ones if the US tech is artificially restricted.
There is not really any way to put a lid on this now. It's certainly possible that things will slow down if there's a big market sell-off and there's less money sloshing around for a while. However, much as the "dot com" bubble bursting didn't mean the internet disappeared, it seems almost certain that AI is here to stay now. Certainly in a business-context, it's already becoming irreplaceable in some situations, and these tools are only going to improve from here. Anyone hoping that if they just keep ignoring it, it might go away like NFTs and the Metaverse is likely to be disappointed. Fable, or something very much like it, will be available again soon. The only thing the US can control is whether it is them that provides it.