I downvoted the comment not because of AI box unsafety (which I don't find convincing at the certainty level with which it's usually asserted -- disutility may well give weight to the worry, but not to the probability), but because it gives advice on the paint color for a spaceship in the time when Earth is still standing on a giant Turtle in the center of the world. It's not a sane kind of advice.
If I'd never heard of the AI-Box Experiment, I'd think that zero call's comment was a reasonable contribution to a conversation about AI and safety in particular. It's only when we realize that object-level methods of restraining a transhuman intelligence are probably doomed that we know we must focus so precisely on getting its goals right.
A friend of mine is about to launch himself heavily into the realm of AI programming. The details of his approach aren't important; probabilities dictate that he is unlikely to score a major success. He's asked me for advice, however, on how to design a safe(r) AI. I've been pointing him in the right directions and sending him links to useful posts on this blog and the SIAI.
Do people here have any recommendations they'd like me to pass on? Hopefully, these may form the basis of a condensed 'warning pack' for other AI makers.
Addendum: Advice along the lines of "don't do it" is vital and good, but unlikely to be followed. Coding will nearly certainly happen; is there any way of making it less genocidally risky?