If one looks as AI systems as including machine learning development, I think the estimate is something like a thousand times as many resources are spent on development as on safety research.

Because everyone is working on machine learning, but machine learning is not AGI. AI is the engineering techniques for making programs that act intelligently. AGI is the process for taking those components and actually constructing something useful. It is the difference between computer science and a computer scientist. Machine learning is very useful for doing inference. But AGI is so much more than that, and there are very few resources being spent on AGI issues.

By the way, you should consider joining ##hplusroadmap on Freenode IRC. There's a community of pragmatic engineers there working on a variety of transhumanist projects, and you AI experience would be valued. Say hi to maaku or kanzure when you join.