The proposed data center moratorium, while intended to address safety, would create a strategic advantage for China and other nations if enacted unilaterally. An American slowdown without global agreement allows adversaries to catch up or surpass the US in AI, highlighting the prisoner's dilemma inherent in global AI regulation.

The idea of nations collectively creating policies to slow AI development for safety is naive. Game theory dictates that the immense competitive advantage of achieving AGI first will drive nations and companies to race ahead, making any global regulatory agreement effectively unenforceable.

The development of AI won't stop because of game theory. For competing nations like the US and China, the risk of falling behind is greater than the collective risk of developing the technology. This dynamic makes the AI race an unstoppable force, mirroring the Cold War nuclear arms race and rendering calls for a pause futile.

Pausing or regulating AI development domestically is futile. Because AI offers a winner-take-all advantage, competing nations like China will inevitably lie about slowing down while developing it in secret. Unilateral restraint is therefore a form of self-sabotage.

Stopping frontier AI development in the US without a verifiable, lockstep agreement with China does not increase safety. Instead, it creates a critical vulnerability, ceding dominance in cyber warfare and national security to an adversary who will continue to advance their own AI capabilities.

A US policy that slows down its own AI labs for safety is logically flawed and self-defeating unless it also effectively slows China's progress. Unilateral deceleration doesn't make the world safer; it simply cedes ground to a less safety-conscious competitor, increasing net risk.

The immense strategic advantage offered by AI ensures its development will continue, regardless of safety concerns from insiders. Much like the Manhattan Project, which proceeded despite catastrophic risk, the logic of "if we don't, China will" makes unilateral cessation of research impossible for any major power.

Nations face a game theory problem with AI. Slowing down for safety might cede an insurmountable advantage to competitors like China. This creates a high-stakes scenario where everyone pushes development to the absolute edge, hoping not to be the one who goes too far.

The race for AI supremacy is governed by game theory. Any technology promising an advantage will be developed. If one nation slows down for safety, a rival will speed up to gain strategic dominance. Therefore, focusing on guardrails without sacrificing speed is the only viable path.