This is exactly what it is, which is so terribly terribly disheartening as Yudkowski is at best a marginal sci-fi writer with and outsized ego and some math chops. He has an almost cult like following over at less wrong.

His writings don't do anything for fundamental AI research but just handwave a lot of philosophical arguments.

I think you nailed it.

"AI doom" is a powerful psychological trope for people in technology, and much like the hypothetical rogue super-AIs, it has gone out of control.