AI development follows the game theory of the nuclear arms race. If the U.S. slows down, it risks creating an asymmetric power dynamic where another nation like China could dominate. The goal is not to stop, but to achieve a global balance of power to ensure stability.

To prevent a reckless race, a proposed solution is a U.S.-China treaty to govern the resources needed for frontier AI. This would involve tracking and monitoring advanced AI chips in data centers and imposing a verifiable cap on the computational power used for any single training run.

The path to surviving superintelligence is political: a global pact to halt its development, mirroring Cold War nuclear strategy. Success hinges on all leaders understanding that anyone building it ensures their own personal destruction, removing any incentive to cheat.

A global AI safety regime should learn from nuclear arms control by focusing on the physical infrastructure that enables strategic capabilities. Instead of just seeking promises, it should aim to control access to chokepoints like advanced chip manufacturing and the massive data centers required for frontier models.

The belief that AI development is unstoppable ignores history. Global treaties successfully limited nuclear proliferation, phased out ozone-depleting CFCs, and banned blinding lasers. These precedents prove that coordinated international action can steer powerful technologies away from the worst outcomes.

Paradoxically, progress in AI alignment has made a global slowdown agreement impossible. Each side now trusts its own 'aligned' AI more than it trusts the other nation to uphold a deal. The perceived risk of being surpassed by a defector now outweighs the perceived risk of one's own AI going rogue, making a competitive race the rational choice.

International AI treaties, particularly with nations like China, are unlikely to hold based on trust alone. A stable agreement requires a mutually-assured-destruction-style dynamic, meaning the U.S. must develop and signal credible offensive capabilities to deter cheating.

To ensure compliance with an AI slowdown treaty, new data centers could be built in neutral third-party countries (e.g., US centers in Mongolia, Chinese centers in Canada). This makes them physically vulnerable to seizure, creating a credible, though costly, deterrent against treaty violations.

Claims that AI treaties are unverifiable lack imagination. During the Cold War, the US and USSR agreed to saw bombers in half on runways, allowing spy planes to visually confirm disarmament. Similar 'outside-the-box' physical verification methods, like publicly escrowing or destroying GPUs, could work for AI.