I agree with a great deal of what you wrote here. There are a lot of questions that are impossible to answer at this time.
A lot of what we are dealing with is hard to define. AGI. Super intelligence. Consciousness. None of them are clearly defined and are moving target.
As for the next 10 years, I think massive advancement is going to take place, to the point where this will be "smarter" than us. Of course, that is nothing new when we look at the area of calculations. We lost that race decades ago.
The challenge with consciousness is that we are looking at multiple levels of input. Knowledge is only one area. There appears to be the observer effect that plays into it.
Federico Faggin did a lot of work in this area where he discussed the idea of deterministic versus free will. Computer states obviously are based upon the ones preceding it.
These are all very dark thoughts, of course, but it really does all seem very plausible to me, and I'm very concerned about it, because I don't think our current governance systems are equipped to properly judge the risk-reward ratio when analyzing how to best proceed with the development of AI technology (the game theory of capitalism tends to incentivize short term versus long term thinking).
This is certainly true. The USG has been talking about a stablecoin bill for two years with nothing. It is one reason why I think governments, as constructed, are ripe for disruption. They were designed when we were based in the physical realm solely. Today, with the digital, things move too quick. Hence, we are looking at something that cannot keep up.
So we are back to the main premise where Big Tech is driving the show. To me, the counter to his is blockchain networks, open source, and permissionless systems. This could usher in a new form of ownership which counters the present modes of production.
One final thought: we appear to be spreading things further out with AI. The fear I do have is of regulatory capture, making use dependent upon a few entities such as OpenAI. This is what Altman appears to be after.