If my Vladimir-modelling heuristic is correct, he's saying that you're postulating a world where humanity has developed GAI but not FAI. Having your non-self-improving GAI solve stuff one math problem at a time for you is not going to save the world quickly enough to stop all the other research groups at a similar level of development from turning you and your boxed GAI into paperclips.
An AI in a simulated world isn't prohibited from improving itself.
More to the point, I didn't imagine I would save the world by writing one comment on LW :-) My idea of progress is solving small problems conclusively. Eliezer has spent a lot of effort convincing everybody here that AI containment is not just useless - it's impossible. (Hence the AI-box experiments, the arguments against oracle AIs, etc.) If we update to thinking it's possible after all, I think that would be enough progress for the day.
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