Exactly. Probably they already started lobbying against selling high end cheap GPUs to the public. No doubt ether going proof of stake is a huge blow to their agenda. They can't claim all those GPUs are just wasting energy for crypto mining. Now they have to come up with different arguments.

I can already see it. Just think of all the energy wasted training AI at home! I can imagine police drones with IR sensors scanning the cities for the heat signatures of illegal AI "farms".

Talking seriously, however they try to spin it, advanced AI (same as every other big scientific/engineering achievement) will be predominantly good. So let's say there is time when AI can create convincing videos of people engaging in various compromising "activities". When this becomes widespread it will give plausible deniability to any potential victim of such attack(with real or deep faked materials) .

In a world where any compromising video or picture can be made with anyone, the value of such materials for wannabee blackmailer diminishes rapidly. However, in a world where there is only few entities that can produce such materials and they do so sparingly those entities get a tool that gives them huge power (especially in democracies where popular opinion decides who governs).