I think it poses a similar risk to pandemics and nuclear war—which is to say, a risk worth taking seriously, but not something to panic over.

I don't think you are using parity classifications. Machine Learning (which is all we're talking about, and is a far cry from AI) is just a broad tool, whereas the other topics are identifiable threats that come from other tools (medicine and physics). ML is only a "risk" in the same way that any other tool is a risk: when it is wielded as a weapon by humans. To that point, all these new ML systems fundamentally require human editors at every stage to keep them from "hallucinating" completely inhuman nonsense. It really is Eliza all over again. Anybody who uses these things know how far away they are from replacing thousands of jobs (or whatever) in any meaningful sense. Nobody selling this as an existential threat should be branded as an expert in anything but hype. 938f18f1147dfda56b5f927ef300eac8a356d6d0706cf8b223ae5effa4af5131