Regulating means defining and proscribing activity the state asserts is harmful, such as putting packing and sell-by dates on meat to prevent selling hazardously old meat.

And yes, having to mind regulations absolutely cuts into profits and increases development time, especially once you consider how your regulations are going to be enforced. Since there are already markets for unethical AI applications, for instance, autonomous weapons platforms, some research and development programs are already clandestine so as to avoid close scrutiny. Since the US state is interested in some of them, it's already motivated not to look too closely.

Besides which, the whole federal regulatory sector is already captured and interested not in serving the public, but in serving stakeholders, hence why we're still waiting on net neutrality, and antitrust action on ISP regional monopolies.