Presage
Scenarios/Plateau/Regulatory Freeze
Mixed Possible by 2030

Regulatory Freeze

After an incident, law stops frontier development in major jurisdictions; progress moves underground or abroad.

Probability this branch occurs by 2030
5–12%
5–12%
1 revision · 0/2 tripwires crossed

The scenario

A visible incident (an agent breakout with casualties, a bio scare, an election) produces a legislative overreaction: moratoria, licensing that only incumbents can meet, or outright bans on classes of models. Development continues in less regulated jurisdictions and inside governments. The freeze buys time in the regulated world and loses visibility everywhere else.

Preconditions

  • A salient incident
  • Legislative capacity to act fast
  • Public opinion turning sharply

Leading indicators

  • Moratorium bills introduced
  • Public opinion polling on AI
  • Lab relocation announcements

Tripwires

Observable thresholds. When one crosses, the scenario's status changes and the weekly re-run is brought forward.

clearrf-t1
A moratorium on frontier training or deployment is enacted in the US, EU or UK
clearrf-t2
A frontier lab relocates development to avoid a jurisdiction's rules

Playbook

Prevent
  • Proportionate regulation before the incident so that the post-incident response has somewhere to go besides a ban
Detect
  • Legislative and polling tracking.
Respond

individuals

  • Expect capability access to vary by country; open weights persist regardless

organizations

  • Compliance capacity becomes the differentiator; jurisdictional diversification

governments

  • If you freeze, fund verification so you can unfreeze on evidence; a freeze with no exit becomes permanent
Recover
  • Sunset clauses and evidence-based review; the 1970s recombinant-DNA moratorium (Asilomar) is the model for a freeze that ended well.

Probability history

Every change is logged with its reason and the signals that drove it. Moves are bounded per week; a jump beyond the bound is flagged as a shock.

Probability range over time
Your estimate

Disagree with our range? Set yours. Estimates feed a community view that appears once enough people weigh in, and the weekly run reads the gap between our number and yours.

9%
2026-09-16
5–12%
seed

Seed estimate. The Senate frontier bill includes release-blocking authority; Metaculus gives 24% for a kill-switch bill by September 2027. A freeze requires an incident plus political will; the EU has just moved the other way.

signals: sig-2026-09-14-senate-frontier-bill, sig-2026-08-02-eu-ai-act

Signals pushing on this branch

2026-09-14
governance
●●○○○

Thune/Cruz/Klobuchar draft frontier bill: duty of care and federal power to block unsafe releases

Includes state preemption on CBRN risks; stalled on who conducts testing; only a few Senate weeks before the November midterms.

timelines ▼ slower concentration ▲ closed safety ▲ safer
TNW / Reuters · ledger
2026-08-02
governance
●●○○○

EU AI Act transparency duties apply; high-risk obligations deferred to late 2027 and 2028

The Digital Omnibus pushed Annex III to December 2027 and Annex I to August 2028, loosening the near-term compliance brake.

timelines ▲ faster concentration — safety ▼ riskier
Certivo · ledger

Built on

Every source reviewed for this scenario. The full ledger is public.

DateSourcePublisherType
2026-09Senate frontier AI bill: duty of care, power to block unsafe releases, state preemptionTNW / Reutersnews
2026-09-09Forecasts after the Hugging Face incident, OpenAI breach, and cyberattack questions
Open-weight matches Mythos cyber benchmark by Jul 2027: 95%. Another sandbox escape by Jan 2027: 50%. AI hacks third party: 41%. Weight exfiltration confirmed: 7%. Kill-switch bill passes both houses by Sept 2027: 24%.
Metaculusforecast
2026-08EU AI Act August 2026: what applies after the Digital Omnibus
Art. 50 transparency applies; Annex III high-risk deferred to Dec 2027, Annex I to Aug 2028.
Certivoanalysis