Very few things are as powerful and dangerous as AI.

AI at AGI to ASI tier is less of "a bigger stick" and more of "an entire nonhuman civilization that now just happens to sit on the same planet as you".

The sheer magnitude of how wrong that can go dwarfs even that of nuclear weapon proliferation. Nukes are powerful, but they aren't intelligent - thus, it's humans who use nukes, and not the other way around. AI can be powerful and intelligent both.