Governments react at a glacial pace to new technological developments. They wouldn't so much as 'let it happen' as that it had happened and they simply never noticed it until it was too late. If you are betting on the government having your back in this then I think you may end up disappointed.
I think if any government really thought that someone was developing a rival within their borders they would send in the guys with guns and handle it forthwith.
They would just declare it necessary for military purpose and demand the tech be licensed to a second company so that they have redundant sources, same as they did with AT&T's transistor.
That was something that was tied to a bunch of very specific physical objects. There is a fair chance that once you get to the point where this thing really comes into being especially if it takes longer than a couple of hours for it to be shut down or contained that the genie will never ever be put back into the bottle again.
Note that 'bits' are a lot easier to move from one place to another than hardware. If invented at 9 am it could be on the other side of the globe before you're back from your coffee break at 9:15. This is not at all like almost all other trade secrets and industrial gear, it's software. Leaks are pretty much inevitable and once it is shown that it can be done it will be done in other places as well.
this is generally true in a regulation sense, but not in emergency. The executive can either covertly or overtly take control of a company if AGI seems to powerful to be in private hands.
While generally true, a lot of governments have not only definitely noticed AI, they're getting flack for using it as an assistant and are actively promoting it as a strategic interest.
That said, any given government may be thinking like Zuckerberg[0] or senator Blumenthal[1], so perhaps these governments are just flag-waving what they think is an investment opportunity without any real understanding…
[0] general lack of vision, thinking of "superintelligence" in terms of what can be done with/by the Star Trek TNG era computer, rather than other fictional references such as a Culture Mind or whatever: https://archive.ph/ZZF3y
[1] "I alluded, in my opening remarks, to the jobs issue, the economic effects on employment. I think you have said, in fact, and I'm going to quote, ``Development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity,'' end quote. You may have had in mind the effect on jobs, which is really my biggest nightmare, in the long term." - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118shrg52706/html/C...
Have you not been watching Trump humiliate all the other billionaires in the US? The right sort of government (or maybe wrong sort, I'm undecided which is worse) can very easily bring corporations to heel.
China did the same thing when their tech-bros got too big for their boots.
Humiliate? They're jostling for position and pushing each other out of the way to see who can buy the most government influenced while giving the least. The only thing that is being humiliated here is the United States reputation the world over. Those billionaires are making out like bandits, finally they really get to call the shots. That they give the doddering old fool some trinkets in return for untold access to power is the thing that should worry you, not that there - occasionally - is a billionaire with buyers remorse. There are enough of them to replace the ones that no longer want to play the game.
