Earlier quoted context omitted.
Geopolitics gets in the way. It is a race between America and China. There's no way to know what is "safe enough", so you might as well go as fast as technology will allow, and be on the watch out for negative things you can predict specifically and then adapt so as to minimize net negatives.
It doesn't have to be a race, that's just the way we have been treating it so far. There have been examples in the past of civilization ending technology that has been redirected from being a death race (chemical, biological, and nuclear arms in particular.)
China doesn't regard AI as a death race. It regards it as a way to ensure its own global stature and benefit its own population.