Thanks for bringing Elon Musk into the conversation. Apparently he is a genius in leveraging and executing. He appears especially adept at leveraging Government money. That is a good thing because "gimme a lever and I can move the world," and the US Government has lots of money that needs to be leveraged.
But he may not be the right guy for AI according to this quote ----
"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon," Musk said last week at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's 2014 Centennial Symposium. "You know all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he's like... yeah, he's sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn't work out."
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IBM or GE or Cray or HP haven't had a lot of play yet on this thread. IBM may positioned to develop AI given their super computing history.
Largest Supercomputer Vendors
IBM 153 Cray Inc. 62 HP 179 (units in service)
They appear to have over 80% of the supercomputing market.
Let's not forget the Chinese either. They are like a USA government except more focused and dedicated to owning the future. They also are skilled at stealing everyone else's work. My guess would be that there are well over 100K top Chinese tech scientists dedicated to AI. That is kinda scary. So let's say, if the Chinese are 1% at AI, according to exponential progress norms, they are only 7 years from AI. (this unfriendly foreign control may be why Musk and Gates are leery of AI?)
A simple command of "AI -- Please shut down all computer systems, internet, radio and power in the US" might possibly be executed in mere hours.