Hawking/Russell/Tegmark/Wilczek:
If a superior alien civilization sent us a text message saying, "We'll arrive in a few decades," would we just reply, "OK, call us when you get here -- we'll leave the lights on"? Probably not -- but this is more or less what is happening with AI.
Nice.
Actually, in the alien civilization scenario we would already be screwed: there wouldn't be much that can be done. This is not the case with AI.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-hawking/artificial-intelligence_b_5174265.html
Very surprised none has linked to this yet:
TL;DR: AI is a very underfunded existential risk.
Nothing new here, but it's the biggest endorsement the cause has gotten so far. I'm greatly pleased they got Stuart Russell, though not Peter Norvig, who seems to remain lukewarm to the cause. Also too bad this was Huffington vs something more respectable. With some thought I think we could've gotten the list to be more inclusive and found a better publication; still I think this is pretty huge.