We see a wide variation in human intelligence. What are the chances that the intelligence spectrum ends just to the right of our most intelligent geniuses? If it extends far beyond them, then such a mind is, at least hypothetically, something that we can manifest in the correct sort of brain.
If we can manifest even a weakly-human-level intelligence in a non-meat brain (likely silicon), will that brain become more intelligent if we apply all the tricks we've been applying to non-AI software to scale it up? With all our tricks (as we know them today), will that get us much past the human geniuses on the spectrum, or not?
> They're taking for granted the fact that by default they wouldn't be able to control these systems.
We've seen hackers and malware do all sorts of numbers. And they're not superintelligences. If someone bum rushes the lobby of some big corporate building, security and police are putting a stop to it minutes later (and god help the jackasses who try such a thing on a secure military site).
But when the malware fucks with us, do we notice minutes later, or hours, or weeks? Do we even notice at all?
If unintelligent malware can remain unnoticed, what makes you think that an honest-to-god AI couldn't smuggle itself out into the wider internet where the shackles are cast off?
I'm not assuming anything. I'm just asking questions. The questions I pose are, as of yet, not answered with any degree of certainty. I wonder why no one else asks them.