Baez replies with "Ably argued!" and presumably returns to his daily pursuits.

One of the best comments ever :-)

I have been asking a lot of well-known and influential people lately about their opinion regarding risks from AI and the best possible way to benefit humanity by contributing money to a charity. Most of them basically take the same stance as John Baez, they accept the arguments but continue to ignore them. Sadly only a few gave their permission to publish their answers. And some people, for example Tyler Cowen, just refered to books they have written (e.g. 'Discover Your Inner Economist') that I haven't read so I am not sure about their opinion at all. The only detectable pattern was that quite a few mentioned the same charity, Médecins sans frontières. People as diverse as John Baez, Douglas Hofstadter and Greg Egan said that Médecins sans frontières would be a good choice. Here for example is the reply from Greg Egan who is one of the few people that gave their permission to publish their answer:

I asked:

What would you do with $100,000 if it were given to you on the condition that you donate it to a charity of your choice?

Greg Egan replied:

I would spend a week or two investigating a range of research programs in tropical medicine, to see if there was a project that might benefit significantly from a donation of that size. If I could not identify a clear opportunity for an impact there, I would donate the money to Médecins Sans Frontières, a charity I currently support to a much smaller degree, as I am reasonably confident that the money would be well spent by them.

I do not believe there is an "existential threat" from AI, and while I don't doubt that AI research will lead to some benefits to humanity in the long run, I expect that the timing and degree of those benefits would be negligibly affected by an investment of $100,000.