I'm not sure that the regulation being proposed by Altman is good, but you're vastly misstating the actual purported threat posed by AI. Altman and the senators quoted in the article aren't expressing fear that AI is becoming sentient, they are expressing the completely valid concern that AI sounds an awful lot like not-AI nowadays and will absolutely be used for nefarious purposes like spreading misinformation and committing identity crimes. The pace of development is happening way too rapidly for any meaningful conversations around these dangers to be had. Within a few years we'll have AI-generated videos that are indistinguishable from real ones, for instance, and it will be impossible for the average person to discern if they're watching something real or not.