“Sir Roger L'Estrange tell us a Story in his Collection of Fables, of the Cock [Rooster] and the Horses. The Cock was gotten to Roost in the Stable, among the Horses, and there being no Racks, or other Conveniencies for him, it seems, he was forc'd to roost upon the Ground; the Horses jostling about for room, and putting the Cock in danger of his Life, he gives them this grave Advice; Pray Gentlefolks let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another.”
HN is scoffing because the timing of this petition is suspicious. To borrow your metaphor of “step on the gas”, this is as if the race had already started, several competitors are out ahead of the rest of the field, and now someone is yelling “step on the brakes!”.
Sam Altman has publicly talked about wanting more regulation. Demis Hassabis stated that AI safety was one of the _motivations_ for founding DeepMind. I don't think any of the industry noise around safety and regulation is new, I think the timing of the petition is relevant _because_ the race has started in an especially messy way (with Llama's weights leaking, Bing/Sydney threatening a journalist based on tweets it found on the internet, various OpenAI security mishaps, etc).
HN is scoffing because the timing of this petition is suspicious. To borrow your metaphor of “step on the gas”, this is as if the race had already started, several competitors are out ahead of the rest of the field, and now someone is yelling “step on the brakes!”.