A third possibility is that AGI becomes the next big scare.

There's always a market for the next big scare, and a market for people who'll claim putting them in control will save us from the next big scare.

Having the evil machines take over has always been a scare. When AI gets more embodied, and start working together autonomously, people will be more likely to freak, IMO.

Getting beat on Jeopardy is one thing, watching a fleet of autonomous quad copters doing their thing is another. It made me a little nervous, and I'm quite pro AI. When people see machines that seem like they're alive, like they think, communicate among themselves, and cooperate in action, many will freak, and others will be there to channel and make use of that fear.

That's where I disagree with EY. He's right that a smarter talking box will likely just be seen as an nonthreatening curiosity. Watson 2.0, big deal. But embodied intelligent things that communicate and take concerted action will press our base primate "threatening tribe" buttons.

"Her" would have had a very different feel if all those AI operating systems had bodies, and got together in their own parallel and much more quickly advancing society. Kurzweil is right in pointing out that with such advanced AI, Samantha could certainly have a body. We'll be seeing embodied AI well before any human level of AI. That will be enough for a lot of people to get their freak out on.