"Researchers reported an average 18 percent chance of near-term human extinction, company leaders talk routinely about the real possibility of catastrophic outcomes, and yet the technology and the industry races full speed ahead, dumping more investment into technological acceleration every quarter, as though a future machine god was trying to drown the whistle-blowers in cash.

Again and again, polling finds that the public is not exactly on board. Americans support a ban on superintelligence by more than 2 to 1. Those who are more concerned than excited about A.I. outnumber those who are more excited by roughly 5 to 1. And those who think the technology is progressing too quickly outnumber those who believe it is moving too slowly by more than 30 to 1. These are the kinds of margins you rarely see in democratic systems.

The question is whether, when it comes to technology, we’re still really living in one — or whether, by letting the pace of progress outrace oversight, we’ve already relinquished control."