Sounds to me like an excellent opportunity to firm up your analysis of the risks. With this, you can make a much more informed decision about whether to tackle the problem head on.
Also this:
One of the things I learned from doing research in industry is that experimental rigor is actually very hard to do properly, and almost everyone, people who publish papers in academia, as well as industry, cut corners to get things out ASAP so they can flag-plant on ArXiv.
I am far from the expert on the subject, but rigorous and safe toy models in code demonstrating any of the things which we discuss seem like they would be very useful.
I notice you have the following:
Long-term concern about the problem
A relevant background in several dimensions
Some time on your hands
Sounds to me like an excellent opportunity to firm up your analysis of the risks. With this, you can make a much more informed decision about whether to tackle the problem head on.
Also this:
I am far from the expert on the subject, but rigorous and safe toy models in code demonstrating any of the things which we discuss seem like they would be very useful.