Since you seem to be well-versed in this world, do you know what reputation Nick Bostrom has in these circles?
People hear "machine learning" and they think it is about machines that know how to think. Machine learning is actually just optimization of high dimensional functions. If this language were used it wouldn't sound as sexy, but no one would think machines are going to take over the world.
AI isn't magic. It's really just clever search techniques and mathematical optimization.
What's your point? Nobody said it's magic. The fact that it isn't magic (and that its tremendous complexity far surpasses our current ability to understand it) supports the notion that it won't suddenly spring into existence. If we placed some primordial sludge in a petrie dish overnight, we wouldn't worry that a sentient creature will have materialized. And if we program a computer to optimize numerical functions, there is just as little evidence (perhaps less), to suggest that the computer will somehow gain sentience.
It's an entertaining society and endlessly fun to read, but still complete fiction based on internal brain states of individuals and not necessarily based on real world interactions.
Also see: Eliezer Yudkowsky — great writer, fun to read, but largely scifi thought experiments masquerading as research.