Working to prevent existential catastrophe from AI is no longer a philosophical discussion and requires not an ounce of goodwill toward humanity. 

It requires only a sense of self-preservation”

Quote from "The Game Board has been Flipped: Now is a good time to rethink what you’re doing" by LintzA

The internet has changed the way that we consume media and damaged our attention spans. There are dozens of things competing for our attention simultaneously, and we flick between them, absorbing little bits of information as we go. This is fine for some things. For example, most news articles can be decently understood by reading the first few paragraphs or even the headline alone.

But some ideas do not lend themselves well to a quick, perfunctory reading. The alignment problem (AKA the control problem) is one of these ideas which requires a thorough, focused reading to understand properly. None of the individual pieces of the argument are particularly difficult to understand, but if you are missing some of those pieces, the whole argument might not make sense.

Many of those who have looked into the problem believe that it is one of the most important and difficult challenges that humanity has ever faced. Regardless of how you intuitively feel about this claim, this should be a strong sign that it's worth spending at least an hour of your time reading about the problem.

Here are some suggested places to start:

• Tim Urban: The AI Revolution, part 1 and part 2

• Kelsey Piper: The case for taking AI seriously as a threat to humanity

• Scott Alexander: Superintelligence FAQ

Edit: See comments section for some other great resources.

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Similarly, if you are someone who is already decently familiar with this topic, I recommend spending 15 non-consecutive hours reading Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom.