The burden of proof is on the people warning us of the impending AI apocalypse. The fact is we are nowhere close to AI. We don't understand how the brain works. A review of the ML literature will also show we barely understand how neural nets work.
"The precautionary principle ... states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action." [0]
Definitely bold... might be just crazy enough to work! Would love to see the arguments laid out in a white paper.
Reminds me of the question of how far ahead in cryptology is the NSA compared to the open research community.
Note: I'm personally not too worried about the AI apocalypse, but I think "we don't even understand neural nets" should cause more concern, not less.