It is not how probable a really powerful AI is, it is how probable TIMES its impact, of course. And this product is just HUGE in the absolute sense, what people tend to forget by the mistaken reasoning "0 times something = 0". The first zero is not zero, and not even very small, so the second zero isn't a zero either.
Therefore I am glad that there is SIAI, after all. At least I find it more important than the most of the Academia involved in AI. It was this Academia who maybe failed in AI research in the past decades. Not the SIAI, not the IBM and not the Google. Those (and others) might be just behind the schedule, by the schedule of others, that is.
OTOH, AI is not really a science yet. There was a little of aerodynamics in 1900, before the first planes. AI is almost all about innovating algorithms. More a garage endeavor than not. And here the SIAI is too short. Not enough pursue, as I know.
Others will provide it, just watch!
I was wondering - what fraction of people here agree with Holden's advice regarding donations, and his arguments? What fraction assumes there is a good chance he is essentially correct? What fraction finds it necessary to determine whenever Holden is essentially correct in his assessment, before working on counter argumentation, acknowledging that such investigation should be able to result in dissolution or suspension of SI?
It would seem to me, from the response, that the chosen course of action is to try to improve the presentation of the argument, rather than to try to verify truth values of the assertions (with the non-negligible likelihood of assertions being found false instead). This strikes me as very odd stance.
Ultimately: why SI seems certain that it has badly presented some valid reasoning, rather than tried to present some invalid reasoning?
edit: I am interested in knowing why people agree/disagree with Holden, and what likehood they give to him being essentially correct, rather than a number or a ratio (that would be subject to selection bias).