My suggestion to Google is to free up their brightest minds and tell them to talk to MIRI for 2 weeks, full-time. After the two weeks are over, let each of them write a report on whether Google should e.g. give them more time to talk to MIRI, accept MIRI's position and possibly hire them, or ignore them. MIRI should be able to comment on a draft of each of the reports.
I think this could finally settle the issue, if not for MIRI itself then at least for outsiders like me.
Well, that's sort of like having the brightest minds at CERN spend two weeks full time talking to some random "autodidact" who's claiming that LHC is going to create a blackhole that will devour the Earth. Society can't work this way.
Does that mean there is a terrible ignored risk? No, when there is a real risk, the brightest people of extreme and diverse intellectual accomplishment are the ones most likely to be concerned about it (and various "autodidacts" are most likely to fail to notice the risk).
So I know we've already seen them buying a bunch of ML and robotics companies, but now they're purchasing Shane Legg's AGI startup. This is after they've acquired Boston Dynamics, several smaller robotics and ML firms, and started their own life-extension firm.
Is it just me, or are they trying to make Accelerando or something closely related actually happen? Given that they're buying up real experts and not just "AI is inevitable" prediction geeks (who shall remain politely unnamed out of respect for their real, original expertise in machine learning), has someone had a polite word with them about not killing all humans by sheer accident?