It's a war in the sense that there's a concern that eventually you hit a singularity and can outsmart others in ways not constrained by human scales.

If you make better guns, you're still limited by how many people can carry them. You can't conquer the world just like this.

But if someone invents super intelligence, they can dominate new AI research, control global economies, fight much better, and all very quickly.

True, I would have preferred benevolent dictator scenario, like with the Internet. But this time around it's different - AI data centers will be protected like embassies.

International goose-chasing competition

"Wild goose race", even.