Comment by frabcus

Not unrealistic - the same thing happened with nuclear weapons, between two superpowers who were at cold war with each other. China and US now are much more similar to each other.

Of course it won't happen without the threat of mutual annihilation, but superintelligent AI provides that threat.

As to how... Obviously you have to be smart and tough and invent mechanisms to make it work without trust. Plan A has a bunch of ideas to start with https://ai-2040.com/supplements/verification-plan