I would think that specialization reduces the variant trees that the AI has to consider which makes it unlikely that implenting AGI techniques would help the chess playing program.
It is not clear to me that the AGI wouldn't (eventually) be able to do everything that a specialised program would (and more). After all, humans are a general intelligence and can specialise; some of us are great chess players, and if we stretch the word specialise, creating a chess AI also counts (it's a human effort to create a better optimisation process for winning chess).
So I imagine an AGI, able to rewrite its own code, would at the same time be able to develop the techniques of specialised AIs, while considering broader issues that might also be of...
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?