imminent, so important, and furthermore so sensitive to initial conditions
To a risk-neutral consequentialist or to an elected or corporate official?
Crash programs in basic science because of speculative applications are very uncommon. Decades of experimentation with nuclear fission only brought a crash program with the looming threat of the Nazis, and after a practical demonstration of a chain reaction.
Over the short time spans over which governments make their plans, the probability of big advances in AI basic science coming is relatively small, even if substantially over the longer term. So you get all the usual issues with attending to improbable (in any given short period) dangers that no one has recent experience with. Note things like hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, etc. The global warming effects of fossil fuel use have been seen as theoretically inevitable since at least the Eisenhower administration, and momentum for action has only gotten mobilized after a long period of actual warming providing pretty irrefutable (and yet widely rejected anyway!). evidence.
Regarding majoritarianism:
Crash programs in basic science because of speculative applications are very uncommon. Decades of experimentation with nuclear fission only brought a crash program with the looming threat of the Nazis, and after a practical demonstration of a chain reaction.
Over the short time spans over which governments make their plans, the probability of big advances in AI basic science coming is relatively small, even if substantially over the longer term. So you get all the usual issues with attending to improbable (in any given short period) dangers that no one has recent experience with. Note things like hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, etc. The global warming effects of fossil fuel use have been seen as theoretically inevitable since at least the Eisenhower administration, and momentum for action has only gotten mobilized after a long period of actual warming providing pretty irrefutable (and yet widely rejected anyway!). evidence.