Having read the book recently, it is quite clear that Bostrom has never coded or built any ML or AI implementation and therefore lacks credibility on the subject.
Luckily, the collective letter regarding making sure society benefits from AI/ML rather than losing out was signed by bunches and bunches of actual trained experts with extensive academic and industrial experience.
Writing a game in BASIC in the 80's is like coding a website in PHP now. It doesn't qualify one as an expert in AI. Not even if you dip a little into 6502 assembly language. Really.
The cult-of-personality aspect to this is a little frightening. Smart people aren't always smart, and they are more than capable of oversubscribing to their own intelligence.
