The problem is that if the United States doesn't do it, China or other countries will. It's exactly the reason why we can't get behind on such a technology from a political / national perspective.
For what it's worth though, I think you're right that there are a lot of parallels with nuclear warheads and other dangerous technologies.
There needs to be a level of serious discourse that doesn't appear to currently be in the air, around what to do, international treaties, and repercussions.
I have no idea why people aren't treating this with grave importance. The level of development of AI technologies is clearly much ahead of where anyone thought it would be.
With exponential growth rates, acting too early is always seen as an 'overreaction', but waiting too long is sure to be a bad outcome (see, world re: coronavirus).
There seems to be some hope, in that as a world we seemed to have banned human cloning, and that has been around since dolly in the late 90s.
On the other hand, the USA can't seem to come to a consensus that a deadly virus is a problem, as it is killing its own citizens.
For what it's worth though, I think you're right that there are a lot of parallels with nuclear warheads and other dangerous technologies.