They're not mutually exclusive. Ideally OpenAI wants regulation that will put them ahead of others, which means:

* set the bar high enough that competition needs to put more effort (or maybe is entirely prevented from entering the market)

* set the bar low enough that OpenAI's business model is not affected (e.g. does not require them to spend significant amount of time and resources on complying with the regulation)

So in US they can lobby for more rules while in EU for fewer restrictions.

This article is about how they convinced EU that GPT is not "high risk AI".

But the very idea of "high risk AI" in general is great for ClosedAI business because any of their competitors would have to convince EU their LLM or whatever is not "high risk" too. And no other competitor has billions of Microsoft's USD to spend on lobbying lawmakers.

They want regulation which doesn't hurt their business model.

You are downvoted but I agree with you. HN was pretty convinced about that and, as it turns out, wrong. (Or, maybe partially wrong because OpenAI probably wants more regulation that helps them and less regulation that hinders them.)

I mean it might have affected them so they wanted it watered down

If we’re following that theory and playing devils advocate

Not mutually exclusive. Europe can get pretty crazy with their takes. Outright bans on things because they disrupt the status quo is the norm. After the rest of the world adapts and outcompetes Europe, then they remove the ban, and international companies flood the market to mop up any potential profit.

Regulatory capture does not completely “bar competition”, but yes, they are presently attempting to engage in regulatory capture, and are succeeding.