firstly, a lot of aspects would not necessarily scale up to a smarter system, and it's sometimes hard to tell what generalizes and what doesn't.
I agree, but certainly trying to solve the problem without any hands on knowledge is more difficulty.
Secondly, it's very very hard to pinpoint the "intelligence" of a program without running it
I agree, there is a risk that the first AGI we build will be intelligent enough to skillfully manipulate us. I think the chances are quite small. I find it difficult to image skipping dog level intelligence and human level intelligence and jumping straight to superhuman intelligence, but it is certainly possible.
Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach, who wrote Moral Machines (MM) for OUP in 2009, address the problem of Friendly AI in their recent chapter for Robot Ethics (MIT Press). Their chapter is a precis of MM and a response to objections, one of which is:
Their brief response to this objection is:
Meh. Not much to this. I suppose The Singularity and Machine Ethics is another plank in bridging the two communities.
The most interesting chapter in the book is, imo, Anthony Beavers' "Moral Machines and the Threat of Ethical Nihilism."