What does "AI programming" even mean ? If he's trying to make some sort of an abstract generally-intelligent AI, then he'll be wasting his time, since the probability of him succeeding is somewhere around epsilon. If he's trying to make an AI for some specific purpose, then I'd advise him to employ lots of testing and especially cross-validation, to avoid overfitting. Of course, if his purpose is something like "make the smartest killer drone ever", then I'd prefer him to fail...
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?