People who believe that AGI is too far away to be concerned about should keep in mind that very few people, even AI enthusiasts and experts, predicted 5 years a

People who believe that AGI is too far away to be concerned about should keep in mind that very few people, even AI enthusiasts and experts, predicted 5 years ago that we would have a human-pro-level Go playing program now. Prior to 2015, no programs could compete evenly with any among hundreds of Go professionals. Two years later, even the human World Champion admits that his competency is far below that of a computer program. "I am quite convinced by this loss that AlphaGo is really strong. From AlphaGo there are lots of things that are worthwhile learning and exploring." -- Ke Jie The time to start working on and funding AI Safety research is now. Note: I am not saying that AGI is imminent. The point is that we do NOT know when it will emerge and AI Safety research is very difficult and will likely take a long time to complete.