The analogy tracks because the stupidity of doing those other things is directly analogous. It's like pointing out that slamming your fingers in the door and slamming your toes in the door both hurt. That's why you shouldn't be purposely doing either one.
How is the new stuff any different than the longstanding fact that anyone can go anywhere and then commit an act of violence? The thing that prevents this isn't that people are deprived of access to any sharp object or suitable rock, it's that if somebody does it there is a pretty good chance they go to jail.
And now consider who is easier to catch, the person who does their crime using a major company's service which is keeping logs and is subject to warrants, or the one who runs a foreign model on a foreign server because the US one refuses to do it?
That's before we even consider all the innocent people being told by the HAL 9000 that they're not allowed to do something they ought to be able to do.
The difference is the asymmetry of the potential warfare we're talking about here.
Committing physical, in-person crimes anonymously has obviously always been possible: there are unsolved murders, thefts, and other crimes every day. But they require a great deal of personal risk to the criminal because the criminal has to physically put themselves into the act of committing the crime, along the path of getting to where the crime is, and has to face an opponent, if their crime is against another person.
Now, that can be sourced remotely, routed through anonymizing tools, VPNs, etc., and do a great deal to cover their tracks so that the "pretty good chance they go to jail" can be substantively minimized in a way we couldn't previously contemplate.
The idea that we should let the US based models be permissive because at least they'll be subject to subpoena power is fatuous: yes, strictly speaking, a user committing crimes on a permissive foreign model will be harder to catch, but non-sophisticated users who have never heard of hugging face may find that being blocked by the US model is enough for them to reconsider their behavior. A dedicated enough individual is going to commit the crime they're going to commit, but there are tons of situations where preventing trivial access to tools that can be used for malice can actually prevent malice from occurring.
It's because a kitchen knife can only be used stab one person at a time. An AK-47 in a crowd will kill many more. Going after someone after the fact who's done something wrong is one thing, but the problem is, if you buy into the fear mongering, a bioweapon could end humanity. Something air transmitted, takes a week to incubate, and is 100% lethal three months later infects all of humanity before it starts killing people, and by then, it's too late. This hasn't happened yet because the people that want to do that can't bioengineer such a pandemic. It's the realm of science fiction, but you're Sama or Dario. Do you want to be responsible for that? The people who want to cause such kinds of harm weren't smart enough and didn't have the dedication or the money or time to get that education. AI makes that attainable for people who would do bad things. There's an obvious answer, which is to make it invite only, and then you're responsible for the people you invited. If I had access to Mythos, and could grant access to other people, but if I was responsible for what that person does with it and could see all their chats with an admin button, they could find ways to make that work. It's just a lot more human-ing than letting randoms sign up with an email address though.
How is the new stuff any different than the longstanding fact that anyone can go anywhere and then commit an act of violence? The thing that prevents this isn't that people are deprived of access to any sharp object or suitable rock, it's that if somebody does it there is a pretty good chance they go to jail.
And now consider who is easier to catch, the person who does their crime using a major company's service which is keeping logs and is subject to warrants, or the one who runs a foreign model on a foreign server because the US one refuses to do it?
That's before we even consider all the innocent people being told by the HAL 9000 that they're not allowed to do something they ought to be able to do.