As a result of this thinking, are you devoting every moment of your time and every Joule of your energy towards avoiding a negative Singularity?

No?

No, me neither. If I were to reason this way, the inevitable result for me would be that I couldn't bear to think about it at all and I'd live my whole life neither happily nor productively, and I suspect the same is true for you. The risk of burning out and forgetting about the whole thing is high, and that doesn't maximize utility either. You will be able to bring about bigger changes much more effectively if you look after yourself. So, sure, it's worth wondering if you can do more to bring about a good outcome for humanity - but don't make gigantic changes that could lead to burnout. Start from where you are, and step things up as you are able.

Lets say the Singularity is likely to happen in 2045 like Kurzweil says, and you want to maximize the chances that it's positive. The idea that you should get to work making as much money to donate to SIAI, or that you should start researching fAGI (depending on your talents). What you do tomorrow doesn't matter. What matters is the average output over the next 35 years.

This is important because a strategy where you have a emotional breakdown in 2020 fails. If you get so miserable you kill yourself you've failed at your goal. You need to make sure that this fallible agent, XIXIDu, stays at a very high level of productivity for the next 35 years. That almost never happens if you're not fulfilling the needs your monkey brain demands.

Immediate gratification isn't a terminal goal, you've figured this out, but it does work as an instrumental goal on the path of a greater goal.

The reason it's important is because it counts as basic mental maintenance, just as eating reasonably and exercising a bit and so on are basic bodily maintenance. You cannot achieve any goal without basic self-care.

For the solving friendly AI problem in particular: the current leader in the field has noticed his work suffers if he doesn't allow play time. You are allowed play time.

You are not a moral failure for not personally achieving an arbitrary degree of moral perfection.

You sound depressed, which would mean your hardware was even more corrupt and biased than usual. This won't help achieve a positive Singularity either. Driving yourself crazier with guilt at not being able to work for a positive Singularity won't help your effectiveness, so you need to stop doing that.

You are allowed to rest and play. You need to let yourself rest. Take a deep breath! Sleep! Go on holiday! Talk to friends you trust! See your doctor! Please do something. You sound like you are dashing your mind to pieces against the rock of the profoundly difficult, and you are not under any obligation to do such a thing, to punish yourself so.

One thing that I've come with when thinking about personal budgeting, of all things, is the concept of granularity. For someone who is poor, the situation is analogous to yours. The dad, lets say, of the household might be having a similar attack of conscience as you are on whether he should buy a candy bar at the gas station, when there are bills that can't be paid.

But it turns out that a small enough purchase, such as a really cheap candy bar (for the sake of argument), doesn't actually make any difference. No bill is going to go from being unpaid to paid because that candy was bought rather than unbought.

So relax. Buy a candy bar every once in a while. It won't make a difference.

I took too long to link to this.

I don't tell people this very often. In fact I'm not sure I can recall ever telling anyone this before, but then I wouldn't necessarily remember it. But yes, in this case and in these exact circumstances, you need to get laid.