(My take on this kind of thing is foremost to acknowledge that it's not enough to make an argument that an existential risk scenario is implausible. Given the stakes, it's not even enough to make a seemingly airtight argument that it's impossible. We should be funding very serious thought on existential risks, including crazy-seeming ones. Y'know, just in case.)
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478532 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1378232
(My take on this kind of thing is foremost to acknowledge that it's not enough to make an argument that an existential risk scenario is implausible. Given the stakes, it's not even enough to make a seemingly airtight argument that it's impossible. We should be funding very serious thought on existential risks, including crazy-seeming ones. Y'know, just in case.)