Yes, this is the problem with AI risk---there's a community pushing hard to gather resources to the cause, but little or no scientific work to be done. This is a rather pathological situation---among other things, the AI risk community makes their own cause look silly, and they promote an unduly negative vision of AGI. I've written more about this here: http://www.basicai.org/blog/ai-risk-2017-08-08.html.

On a positive note, as a piece of science fiction, this was an enjoyable read!