The same argument can be used the other way. If we don't even know which direction to take, what makes you think that AGI is a century or more away? Say, in 10 years, we better understand the problem we want to solve and the direction to take, what make you think it would take 90 years to solve, versus 20 or 30?

I think we simply have no idea when this could happen, it could be in 20, it could be in 200. But one thing is sure, when it will happen, this will have drastic implications for our society, so why not start thinking about it now, in case it's 20 and not 200?

We should. I was not expounding a policy. I was merely stating the results of a conference on the subject at hand. All of what was discussed in the article is weak AI. Narrow programs delivering narrow features. Social engineering doesn't require strong AI.

"If we don't even know much about our universe, what makes you think that an alien invasion is a century or more away?"

Yet I don't see us losing our heads over the chance of an alien invasion.

Based on the fact that there hasn't been any known alien encouter during human written history, that we haven't found any artifact of such an event, even in a distant past, that a 100ly radius is really tiny at the scale of the galaxy, that we haven't found any sign of life outside earth, and that anyway, if an alien civ is advanced enough to come here and invade us we can't really hope to do anything againts that, there is indeed no need to spend time worrying about that.

Considering the evolution of computing and technology in general in the last 50 years would you consider the two things to be remotely comparable?

I personally don't.

Neither have we experienced a true AI, and none of the gains in the last 50 years have brought us anything near it, only more advanced computing ability and "trick" AI.

We just assume technology will improve exponentially based on an extremely small sample size. Has it never occurred to us that the technology curve may horizontally asymptotic as opposed to exponential?

The ICE was an amazing piece of technology that grew rapidly, from cars to military warplanes, to our lawnmowers. Yet we can not make them much more efficient or powerful without significantly increasing resources and cost. If you judged the potential of the ICE on the growth it had then, we'd be living in an efficiency utopia now.

Based on the fact that there hasn't been any known AI encouter during human written history, that we haven't found any AI artifact of such an event, even in a distant past, .... , and that anyway, if an AI civ is advanced enough to explode exponentially we can't really hope to do anything againts that, there is indeed no need to spend time worrying about that.

AFAICT there's 2 paths to A.I.

Path 1 is understand how the brain organizes info. Recreate those structures with algorithms. This path is 100+ years away

Path 2 is just simulate various kinds of neurons with no understanding of how they represent higher level concepts. This path is < 20 years away by some estimates

You probably believe path #2 is either also 100+ years away or won't work. I happen to think it will work the same way physics simulations mostly work. We write the simulation and then check to see if it matches reality. We don't actually have to understand reality at a high level to make the simulation. We just simulate the low level and then check if the resulting high level results match reality. It certainly seems possible A.I. can be achieved by building only the low-level parts and then watching the high-level result.

I have found myself repeating this paraphrased quote often recently, which is relevant.

"We didn't achieve flight by simulating birds; we needn't worry about achieving ai by simulating brains."

If the Hammeroff-Penrose conjecture is correct then the only simulation possible is whole replication with quantum effects present. The unreasonable effectiveness of neural networks makes that unlikely thou.

So... I dont want/need to think about this cause I'll be long dead? :) On a related note, how optimistic are you about life extending medical technology (which is likely to be accelerated by even minor advances in computing and AI)?

Not what I said. I'm cautiously optimistic about life extending technologies. I'm not sure computing technology and AI will carry the day, I'm more inclined towards the physical sciences.