Of course! What slows down the development is the adoption of specific safety conditions the companies draw up. They can just do that, and it will hold up in court.
> in their view, letting other companies win would increase the probability of human extinction
Yes, I've heard: "We must be in charge even if we end up killing everyone in the process." I personally think that proposition is invalid, but we're all entitled to our opinions.
People used to append IANAL to such statements :-)
> I personally think that proposition is invalid
I agree, but that's meaningless in this context. I was responding to the claim that "if they wanted to pace the frontier, would simply do it", which is false, given what they actually believe.
Do you think their beliefs deserve some sort of special treatment?
No.
I mean, the point (if the claim is to be believed) isn't just to "slow down the development", it's to take more time during development to properly assess the risks the models pose, develop methodologies to reduce that risk, and standardize that across companies. I doubt those wouldn't count, especially in the eyes of regulators of an administration calling for that same slow down.