Artificial Intelligence the current greatest existential threat to humanity? (!)

(Here)

I'm in the camp of the ostriches on this one (somewhat), because I disbelieve, for philosophical reasons, in artificial consciousness, and because I tend to think that people will have enough instinct for self-preservation to avoid giving real power and control over human life to machines. (Note an important distinction between artificial intelligence, which can be mindless algorithm, and artificial consciousness. And I admit I may be very, very wrong). Anyway, these are the big quotes from the piece.

Bill Gates:

“I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence,” Gates wrote. “First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.”

Here’s what Elon Musk had to say:

"I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence. Increasingly scientists think there should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like yeah he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out."