In the absence of a global police state or a permanent halt to semiconductor development, this is happening.
Even in the absence of all other arguments, it's better that we figure it out early, as the potential to just blast it into orbit by the way of insanely overprovisioned hardware will be smaller. That would be a much more dangerous proposition.
I still think that figuring out the safety question seems very muddy; how do we ensure this tech doesn't run away and become a competing species. That's an existential threat which must be solved. My judgement on that question is that we can't expect making progress there without having a better idea of exactly what kind of machine we will build, so also an argument for trying to figure this out sooner rather than later.
Even in the absence of all other arguments, it's better that we figure it out early, as the potential to just blast it into orbit by the way of insanely overprovisioned hardware will be smaller. That would be a much more dangerous proposition.
I still think that figuring out the safety question seems very muddy; how do we ensure this tech doesn't run away and become a competing species. That's an existential threat which must be solved. My judgement on that question is that we can't expect making progress there without having a better idea of exactly what kind of machine we will build, so also an argument for trying to figure this out sooner rather than later.
Less confident about the last point, though.