2) I agree but we have to solve the problem of induction first but LW/EY are certain that there is no problem of induction. How can one be certain in a Kantian/Popper framework where statements can be proved false but never true?
3a) Here is where we part ways. It is a common assumption that AI implies consciousness but I think that is an unwarranted assumption. Whatever the principles behind intelligence are, we know that consciousness minds have found a way to (implicitly) enact them. It does not follow that consciousness is necessary for intelligence (just the biological manifestation of them) and I think good arguments exist to think that they are not correlatives. If they are correlatives then it will be easier to genetically design better babies, now that evolution is in conscious control, than to start from scratch.
3b) Goals, values, aims, etc. are teleological concepts that apply to living things only because they face the alternative of life or death. Turning off your computer does not kill it in the same sense that a living thing that stops functioning dies forever. 3a) & 3b) diffuses all the scary AI scenarios about AI taking over the world. It does raise the issue of AI in the hands of bad people with evil goals and values, like the dictator of North Korea who now apparently has the H-Bomb. This is the real danger today.
4) I agree. Computer aided intelligence will allow us to accelerate the accumulation of knowledge (and its application to human life) in unimaginable ways. But it will be no more conscious than your (deductive) calculator.
5) Non Sequiturs. Possibly psychological projection of helplessness or hopelessness.
6) As the joke goes, we can always unplug it.
7) Granting your premises then the goal of LW/EY should not be AI but the scientific, rational proof and definition of ethics but their fundamental philosophic premises won't allow it.
8) For me the threat is bad, evil people in possession of powerful technologies.