I agree with the general point that as technology improves a singleton becomes more likely. I'm agnostic on whether the control mechanisms I describe would be used by a singleton or by a bunch of actors, and as far as I can tell the character of the control problem is essentially the same in either case.
I wonder -- are you also relatively indifferent between a hard and slow takeoff, given sufficient time before the takeoff to develop ai control theory?
(One of the reasons a hard takeoff seems scarier to me is that it is more likely to lead to a singleton, with a higher probability of locking in bad values.)
There have been a couple of brief discussions of this in the Open Thread, but it seems likely to generate more so here's a place for it.
The original paper in Nature about AlphaGo.
Google Asia Pacific blog, where results will be posted. DeepMind's YouTube channel, where the games are being live-streamed.
Discussion on Hacker News after AlphaGo's win of the first game.