[ben_w]

> and will thus be the first to usher in a new era of an arms race where everyone loses except those who are at the very top and can take advantage of the losers.

Unless the AI is stupid, in which case the leader pushes the button and finds that either the AI hallucinates a solution that plain doesn't work, and/or turns out to be acting according to a completely different set of moral values than they wanted, values which can be the straw-est of straw men versions of either your own or you opponent's policies that nobody would ever actually expect to meet in a real political takeover scenario.

[vouaobrasil]

True, but the arms race does not have to be solely about the leader's use of AI. It is mainly the forced acceleration of economic development that will mainly lead to superficial changes in the long run that won't really be beneficial to anyone, and use a lot of energy in the mean time.