What's interesting is that it seems like we're really working to get out ahead of ideas. Too bad we weren't able to do this with nukes.
Could you explain your second comment? In context, "do this" seems to indicate "determine the ethics and safety" and, well, I'm pretty sure we did do that with nukes. I mean, even before the first test we (for certain values of "we") were aware that 'safety' amounted to 'kills everything out to X radius' and 'ethics' was clearly 'mass murder at the push of a button', it's just that those things were the whole point.
Unless maybe you're suggesting Oppenheimer should have envisioned the whole edifice of MAD and the Cold War before the technology was developed...?
katydee and myself have written an annotated, preliminary list of organizations focused on the ethics and safety of future technologies. Please suggest additions!