Whether or not you think it's a good thing, controlling LLMs is arguably a lot more effective than cryptography. For crypto as long as you have at least one currently unbreakable algo out there (which fits on a single page of code/math), there's not really much point to regulating it. And to use crypto. the client has to know the algorithm details.

LLMs are already being kept closed weight/source by default. On the client side it's just a generic API client. The underlying technology (weights) wasn't going to be exported even if allowed.

But what's more interesting isn't binary access or not--it's monitoring the chat content, and potentially influencing its replies. (Perhaps the old GPS SA is a better analogy than encryption export.) For example, model providers could be required to allow the government to detect suspected foreign government users and silently degrade performance. They could be required to flag potential exploit discoveries and then send them to CISA for remediation. Or, they could be required to inject disinformation about sensitive topics so that even if you jailbreak, the model is incapable of discussing topics like, say, the presidential motorcade or the design of military bases.