RE: AI: "The technology is very powerful and potentially very dangerous..."
I admit that I distrustful, that can make me pessimistic in some circumstances. That is why I use the example of the SETI Project or the search for the creation of a portal between dimensions, in these cases we are like an English explorer screaming in the middle of an unknown jungle so that whatever exists there finds us ... in the most Optimistic cases will not be something that kills us or gives serious problems, but I already said that I am not so optimistic.
I think you're right with that the question is not if they succeed but how much time we have before it becomes a reality. I do not think that evolution matters much to him that another dominant species disappears, it already happened with dinosaurs and if we want a few closer cases, we have several ancestral hominid branches that became extinct and we are descendants of their successors.
I wonder if an intermediate point could be achieved, some kind of peaceful coexistence, but I think that we humans are not going to endure being with another species that surpasses us without trying to exterminate it even if it leads to destruction.