We don't need to appeal to interpersonal love and hatred in order to model the fact that a rational agent is competing in a zero-sum game.
There a difference between "need to appeal" and something being a possible explanation.
Sure, but love and hate are rather specific posits. Empirically, the vast majority of dangerous processes don't experience them. Empirically, the vast majority of agents don't experience them. Very plausibly, the vast majority of possible intelligent agents also don't experience them. "the AI neither loves you, nor hates you" is not saying 'it's impossible to program an AI to experience love or hate'; it's saying that most plausible uFAI disaster scenarios result from AGI disinterest in human well-being rather than from AGI sadism or loathing.
There's a big Hollywood movie coming out with an apocalyptic Singularity-like story, called Transcendence. (IMDB, Wiki, official site) With an A-list cast and big budget, I contend this movie is the front-runner to be 2014's most significant influence on discussions of superintelligence outside specialist circles. Anyone hoping to influence those discussions should start preparing some talking points.
I don't see anybody here agree with me on this. The movie has been briefly discussed on LW when it was first announced in March 2013, but since then, only the trailer (out since December) has been mentioned. MIRI hasn't published a word about it. This amazes me. We have three months till millions of people who never considered superintelligence are going to start thinking about it - is nobody bothering to craft a response to the movie yet? Shouldn't there be something that lazy journalists, given the job to write about this movie, can find?
Because if there isn't, they'll dismiss the danger of AI like Erik Sofge already did in an early piece about the movie for Popular Science, and nudge their readers to do so too. And that'd be a shame, wouldn't it?