If you and me and all of humanity gets killed by AI and turned into paperclips, that would be an unprecedented moral catastrophe. If the AIs that killed all of us stay around and enjoy having more paperclips, that is still extremely bad. The very act of killing us makes these AIs not a worthy successor of the human species.
This suggests that proposing to pause AI today is like proposing to pause electricity in 1880
The prospect of AI killing all of us makes these very different. Yes, in both cases a pause will probably slow GDP growth. But humans should be willing to accept lower GDP if this notably reduces the chance of all humans being killed.
Is there a reason why you are focusing on compute and not salaries? The example numbers you use are rather low compared to the yearly salary of a single AIS researcher.