I did not highlight the distinction that in this class of hypotheticals that the lesser harm requires action and that the greater harm requires one to simply do nothing, to stand idly by as it were - oh my god, I can here the voice of my prof in my head from days gone by as I clarify this point. Still, the causal link remains, one can either choose to act or not (or insist that you cannot even begin to play the game as was done here). But apart from that action/inaction subtlety I have to disagree with you here, it is an accurate if not entirely straight-faced summary.

Look, you might have a good working understanding of "can't occupy the epistemological state" (oh really, why? because I haven't achieved the level of perfection of my future hypothetical self) but I find it fairly meaningless. Hint: substitue epistemological with ethical or even aesthetical to see if such an assertion becomes any more meaningful. Note: I am not saying that I am positioning myself against the "you can't even begin to play (or, I'm not playing) the game" stance or some variation thereof as my response to this dilemma would be probably something along these lines given my aversion to hypothetical thought experiments such as this which I feel contribute very little to the debates in morality and ethics.

This isn't the core point of the essay. But this is not the case surely. The essay makes many points, sure, but this chain of reasoning is I believe fairly central and although it could be excised I believe that the author formulated the whole essay this way for a reason. This post-singularity being's properties are analysed in the light of a very classic problem in philosophy. If you look at the comments you will see that a poster points out that "regular" philosophers invoke mythical beings such as 'angels' or 'ideally rational agents' which are non-tech versions of what is going on here. I don't think it's a dodge, it doesn't even seem like a dodge and the author didn't even need to point this out. Where I'm coming from is that this ground has been covered and it has been covered in language that is not obfuscated. The jargon salad does nothing more than communicate "look at me, I'm so clever" which is why I claim that the author sounds smarter than he actually is.

just a way of rephrasing the idea that philosophical hypotheticals are actually useless by virtue of being impossibly overspecified which itself comes from impossible oversimplification This would be something a logical positivist would say. It's something I'm very inclined towards. I agree that hypotheticals like this generate a good amount of noise and heat but they fail to be constructive or advance our understanding of ethical questions beyond perhaps showing what ethical norms a person subscribes to, to whit: all life is sacred and one is commanded by a supreme being to do no harm, all life has intrinsic worth/value so you shall never through action do harm, you shall optimize for the greater good, and so on and so on.