On the other hand, only few people are currently in the position to claim (4) to any extent. One needs to (a) understand the problem statement, (b) be talented enough, and (c) take the problem seriously enough to direct serious effort at it.
(4 here being “If FAI is possible, person X’s work contributes to developing FAI.”) This seems be a weak part of your argument. A successful FAI attempt will obviously have to use lots of philosophical and technical results that were not developed specifically with FAI in mind. Many people may be contributing to FAI, without consciously intending to do so. For example when I first started thinking about anthropic reasoning I was mainly thinking about human minds being copyable in the future and trying to solve philosophical puzzles related to that.
Another possibility is that the most likely routes to FAI go through intelligence enhancement or uploading, so people working in those fields are actually making more contributions to FAI than people like you and Eliezer.
(4 here being “If FAI is possible, person X’s work contributes to developing FAI.”) This seems be a weak part of your argument. A successful FAI attempt will obviously have to use lots of philosophical and technical results that were not developed specifically with FAI in mind. Many people may be contributing to FAI, without consciously intending to do so. For example when I first started thinking about anthropic reasoning I was mainly thinking about human minds being copyable in the future and trying to solve philosophical puzzles related to that.
Another possibility is that the most likely routes to FAI go through intelligence enhancement or uploading, so people working in those fields are actually making more contributions to FAI than people like you and Eliezer.