I think you get very different answers depending on whether your question is “what is an example of a policy that makes it illegal in the United States to do research with the explicit intent of creating AGI” or whether it is “what is an example of a policy that results in nobody, including intelligence agencies, doing AI research that could lead to AGI, anywhere in the world”.
For the former, something like updates to export administration regulations could maybe make it de-facto illegal to develop AI aimed at the international market. Historically, that was successful at making it illegal to intentionally export software which implemented strong encryption for a bit. It didn’t actually prevent the export, but it did arguably make that export unlawful. I’d recommend reading that article in full, actually, to give you an idea of how “what the law says” and “what ends up happening” can diverge.
I think you get very different answers depending on whether your question is “what is an example of a policy that makes it illegal in the United States to do research with the explicit intent of creating AGI” or whether it is “what is an example of a policy that results in nobody, including intelligence agencies, doing AI research that could lead to AGI, anywhere in the world”.
For the former, something like updates to export administration regulations could maybe make it de-facto illegal to develop AI aimed at the international market. Historically, that was successful at making it illegal to intentionally export software which implemented strong encryption for a bit. It didn’t actually prevent the export, but it did arguably make that export unlawful. I’d recommend reading that article in full, actually, to give you an idea of how “what the law says” and “what ends up happening” can diverge.