I'm still of the opinion that we are FAR from creating natural intelligence in the human race, so we shouldn't get bent up over artificial intelligence.
That may be exactly why the human race needs AI.
Aside from environmental factors, like nutrition, and avoidance of common diseases through sanitation, I doubt the average human IQ is any higher than it was 10,000 years ago. Perhaps due to the crutch effect of technology (agriculture = a higher % of the stupid live and procreate) it's quite likely it's actually lower.
We know more, and we can build on past experience, but we are not any smarter, and more importantly, I don't think we're any wiser. And as our tools and technology get better and better and more and more destructive, time might be running out. And if you look at the people who are supposedly trying to "save" us, peace activists, liberals, environmentalists and most all of their various hairy ilk, it's plain as day they're every bit as angry, self-centered, and venal as those they purport to oppose, arguably even more so.
Perhaps building something that's smarter and wiser than we are is the only way we're going to save ourselves.
And if the AI does turn out to be malevolent, or simply indifferent and it obsoletes humanity, well... (shrug) then we were probably going to destroy ourselves anyway. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, political/economic or even the periodic mega-natural disasters such as asteroids, comets, or supervolcanisim, or perhaps just major
natural climate change will do us in.
Even if it's "bad" AI that replaces us, I can't help but wonder if that isn't still better than humanity having
nothing to show for itself a million years from now.