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There are people who also argue that it will happen "never". Anyway I'd say this is a threat in similar ballpark as "being invaded by alien species". What is a chance that humanity's technological progress woke up some Von Neumann probe from some ancient civilization somewhere in Oort cloud which is now ramping up self-replication capacities and building up an invasion spacefleet set to destroy Earth? Existence of such probes throughout the galaxy could definitely be one answer for Fermi paradox, whatever the chance you assign to such a possibility multiply it with existential threat and you are Pascal mugged toward giving it a lot of thought.
But similarly to the AI problem, it is hard to conceive what to do about it. Maybe not search for ancient civilization by Active SETI and maybe increase manufacturing of nuclear rockets capable of targeting things on our orbit?
Going back to AI, I have yet to see any material results of the supposed "friendly AI" research. We do not even know what technology will lead to such an AI which means it may be hard or even impossible to imbue it with certain morality. Not to even talk if EA people and affiliated researchers are the best people for that job given their own morality. In fact if one is as serious as you are here about it, probably the best course of action would be to go full Terminator 2 and assassinate all leading AI researchers and bomb all the research laboratories with hope that we will eventually land upon some form of AI Inquisition type government banning all research into the area under severe penalties. Of course this looks too crazy even for AI types, but it would be logical conclusion here.
Well they're not serious thinkers, are they? Where is the law of physics that says it's impossible to make a rogue AI? Even if such a law did exist, never is a very strong word. I'd be cautious before saying we would 'never' find some way around thermodynamics, the most solid foundation we have. Who knows what could be achieved 500,000 years after the Scientific Revolution? We're only 300 or so years in, there may be a few revolutions to come.
It's outrageously silly to say 'never' when we have so many questions still unanswered, when AI is advancing at such a rapid pace.
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I almost put aliens in my comment. The threat from extraterrestrials is similar to AI in that it is difficult to quantify but at the same time the potential damage is 100% extinction. And since, in either case, we have no base rate we have to make assumptions of likelihood from first principles. This is what some people have difficultly accepting, probably the same type who weren't worried about nuclear weapons in the 1940s.
I also agree that there is not much that can be done. Although actively trying to get aliens to find us does seem uniquely stupid. I guess I just get frustrated when people conflate "minor" threats such as climate change or supervolcanoes with things that are much more serious.
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I mean, huge amounts of talent and capital are being poured into building AGI, and we know it's physically possible (because human brains exist). So to be sure that it'll never happen seems like a stretch.
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