AI as a Trojan horse race

I’ve argued that the AI situation is not clearly an ‘arms race’. By which I mean, going fast is not clearly good, even selfishly. I think this is a hard point to get across. Like, these people are RACING. They say they are RACING. If they stop RACING the other side will get there first. How is it not a RACE? Which is a fair response. It’s like if I said “this isn’t a chess tournament” gesturing at a group of chess champions aggressively playing chess. How could it not be? Well, maybe all the prizes and recognition available in the circumstances are based on winning at checkers.