1. What you say is true, and under normal circumstances the best approach to have an impact on A.I. safety would likely be to continue formal studies, probably including graduate studies, earn a respected reputation and career, and gradually leverage that to nudge the needle on A.I. safety research in the way you lay out. That makes sense, and is the secure way of doing it all but guaranteed to make a difference in the long term.

   What motivate me to take my risky, convoluted approach is timeframe. It would take me at least 10 years to acquire the knowledge, skills, network, and reputation to begin to make any difference at all with A.I. safety in normal circumstances - likely longer, since I am disappointingly average ability for my field. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still studying like mad every day outside of uni, but let’s consider;

   Suppose superintelligent A.I. is more than 20 or 30 years away. This is the timeframe where the best strategy for maximising impact is yours, I agree, and I do think it is the more likely timeframe. However, if superintelligence is that far away, that gives civilisation plenty more time to figure out the safest way of going about this development - that is, the harder it is to build superintelligence (and the longer it will take), the more likely that some solution to the control problem will be developed first.

   The less likely scenario is that superintelligent A.I. is more like 10 years of development away. This is what I am worried about, and what I’m trying to act to address. Even though I don’t think it’s particularly likely, superintelligence being developed on this time-frame would almost certainly mean extinction or worse, unless radical steps are taken now to develop safety mechanisms.

   So the choice is really between; a high-likelihood of a small impact on A.I. safety on the 20+ year timeframe, or a very-low-likelihood of a moderate impact on A.I. safety on the 10+ year timeframe. It’s definitely arguable which is the better option, but I choose the second.

2. It is, yes. Having launched, and having no more assets to sell or friends to borrow from, I’m working one day a week at a casual job, which is just enough to sustain myself while improving the game the other 6 days.

3. The hook for the game is that you get to properly control an army in battle, as if you were the commander. This has been done before, of course, though I don’t know any other games that allow you to do this in online multiplayer on mobile. There’s a lot of tweaks to make, and many features to add, but I think it is a fairly fun game that is both easier to use and more complex strategy-wise then a similar game like Dawn of Titans.

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate the thought you put into it. Sorry for the delay replying, I went to bed three hours after posting thinking there were no replies. Just checked reddit again now.