(I yesterday heard someone who ought to know say AI at human level, and not provably friendly, in 16 years. Yes my jaw hit the floor too.)

I hadn't thought of the "park it, we have bigger problems", or "park it, Omega will fix it" approach, but it might make sense. That raises the question, and I hope it's not treading to far into off-LW-topic: to what extent ought a reasoning person act as if they expected a gradual and incremental change in the status quo, and to what extent ought their planning to be dominated by expectation of large disruptions in the near future?