I don't quite get the point of slowing down your drive toward a cliff... what's the strategy here? Is the goal to wait until another Congress comes along? Or are they planning to actually invest more in AI safety at the same time? Or are they just going to wait for society to do nothing and then blame society and speed back up?

I think you can see the Democrats all starting new committees and prepping bills and big AI is betting that Democrats will be in power soon. Too late IMO and won't make a difference.