But the United States was not a "small team".

Relatedly, there have been numerous instances of individual humans taking over entire national governments by exploiting high-leverage, usually unethical, opportunities. A typical case involves a military general staging a coup or an elected leader legislating unlimited power unto himself. None of these instances look anything like firms competing for resources. Instead, we have single actors who are intelligent and opportunistic, unethical or morally atypicall, and risk-tolerant enough to accept the consequences of a failed coup.

A UFAI looks much more like a dictator than a firm.