> And this is all fine, because they’re going to make AGI and the expected value (EV) of it will be huge! (Briefly, the argument goes that if there is a 0.001% chance of AGI delivering an extremely large amount of value, and 99.999% chance of much less or zero value, then the EV is still extremely large because (0.001% * very_large_value) + (99.999% * small_value) = very_large_value).

This is a strawman. The big AI names aren't making a Pascal's wager type argument around AGI.

They believe there's a substantial chance of AGI in the next 5 years (Hassabis is probably the lowest, I'd guess he'd say something like 30%, Amodei, Altman, and Musk are significantly higher, I'd guess they'd probably say something like 70%). They'd all have much higher probabilities for 10 years (maybe over 90%).

You can disagree with them on probabilities. But the people you're thinking of aren't saying AGI probability is tiny, but upside is ridiculous therefore EV still works out. They're biting the bullet and saying probability is high.