The substance of my comment to Sen Wiener hinges on a similar point to what you raise here.
It's incredibly difficult to imagine doing a good job of regulating model training, especially in a few years when the available flops are high enough that this limit is being hit often.
It's much more straightforward to regulate actions: constructing WMD is illegal, synthesizing drugs is illegal, etc.
If the state wants to tighten up its laws about various activities, go for it. That's the right place to act. Injecting itself into the model training process seems very unlikely to yield any substantive benefits and very likely to hinder progress.
It's incredibly difficult to imagine doing a good job of regulating model training, especially in a few years when the available flops are high enough that this limit is being hit often.
It's much more straightforward to regulate actions: constructing WMD is illegal, synthesizing drugs is illegal, etc.
If the state wants to tighten up its laws about various activities, go for it. That's the right place to act. Injecting itself into the model training process seems very unlikely to yield any substantive benefits and very likely to hinder progress.