I don't understand how climate change isn't at the very top of the list of existential risks to human civilization. If your concern is warding off existing and urgent existential risks, and then you end up fucking around worrying about killer robots instead of solving the problem that is literally at your doorstep, right now, then something has gone very, very wrong.
Err, I thought I covered it in my post, but let me make it clearer -
the question in this case isn't what is or isn't a risk, it's where is it better to spend more money. Considering the fact that climate change gets billions in funding and other x-risks get almost nothing, the arguement is, not that they're important, but that they need the money more.
(btw, climate change might not be an existential risk because it won't necessarily kill the entire human race).
Climate change is imeasurably more plausable as an extinction event than the singularity though, and is actively being caused right now. There is no evidence whatsoever of historical mass extinctions being linked to any technological singularities, but rather the are all in some way linked to climate change. Worth keping in mind before dismissing it as a non existential risk.
"Climate change gets billions in funding" is a totally meaningless statement. Do you mean funding for basic research into the systems that cause climate change? Do you mean funding for lobbying efforts? Or are we talking about funding for people working on practical solutions?
If you believe, like I do, that every dollar spent lobbying governments to "do something" about climate change is a dollar wasted, then the funding picture looks pretty bleak.
