The conspiracy theory is suggesting this is part of a larger strategy. I'm just saying it's a big enough company with a wide enough range of beliefs that I find it pretty likely that the direct motives for this weren't to enable regulatory capture.

But they could be, that's why it's a conspiracy theory.

Suppose it goes like this: part of the company clearly benefits from “AI scary” publicity.

Other parts of the company want to support the public.

The first part of the company backs up the second in internal politics.

Do you consider this a conspiracy? Just seems like “good business” to me. It doesn’t seem as clean as you want to make it seem, though.