Comment by enugu

Restricting things like creation of a highly infectious virus is very different from restricting books or even guns. There is no 'monopoly' over such a technology, as a use of the technology will inevitably harm the creators themselves.

Restrictions on high end biology, chemistry would leave overwhelming number of use cases of LLMs unaffected - no need to ban open weight LLMs. Such restrictions can be even more effective, if it is coupled to researchers getting early access to see the possible problems and have an opportunity to prevent the outbreak or create new vaccines well in advance.

Restrictions are not enabling monopolies. The opposite is true, if a LLM engineered virus or other harmful technology is let loose, public opinion can very quickly swing towards draconian regulation. (see nuclear power after Chernobyl).