The "for almost any goals" argument is bunk.
A statement which we can derive from the simple fact that the mere existence of general intelligence (apes) does not result automatically in catastrophe.
I wonder how long it'll take before people catch onto the notion that artificial "dumbness" is in many ways a more interesting field than artificial "intelligence"? (As in, how much could an AGI no smarter than a dog, but hooked into expert systems similar to Watson, do?)
It was pretty well accepted at MIT's Media Lab back when my orbit took me around there periodically, a decade or so ago, that there was a huge amount of low-hanging fruit in this area... not necessarily of academic interest, but damned useful (and commercial).
From Geoff Anders of Leverage Research:
Not a surprising result, perhaps, but the details of how Geoff taught AGI danger and the reactions of his students are quite interesting.