Comment by ben_w
> First, it assumes that scaling models automatically leads to something dangerous.
The impression I had is with reversed causation: that it can't be all that dangerous if it's smaller than this.
Assuming this alternative interpretation is correct, the idea may still be flawed, for the same reasons you say.
I also suspect that the only real leverage the U.S. has is on big compute (i.e. requires the best chips), and less capable chips are not as controllable.