That's a different sort of problem, I think. It doevetails with a lot of "two rail carts heading toward death" scenarios beloved by moral philosophy, but I still don't think it's the same problem.
Moral philosophy ultimately deals with what morals are. But, because morals predate moral philosophy, the moral philosophy isn't free to come to whatever conclusions it comes to. If the philosophy doesn't agree with what we already think is moral (beyond helping us navigate ambiguities), we just reject it.
If we want to give AI a Asimovian ethic, we're just concerned with making it do what we want it to do.
Isn't that the whole point of most "safe AGI" research? Not that it's necessarily a good thing, but I imagine that if there was a chance that the most ethical option was in fact to destroy all humans, most people would prefer AI to have "do what we want it do" ethics than "do what's most ethical" ethics.
IDK, honestly. Not my lane. At an uneducated guess, I would say that it's probably a more common topic of "safe AGI" press articles than actual research. Dunno though.
It's too theoretical. When technology is theoretical, we tend to personify it. If we imagined an automated hotel in the 60s, we'd probably imagine a humanoid robot standing at reception. In the 2000s, that image would have been a screen at reception. Today, it's an app that also unlocks the door and there is no lobby.
My guess is that by the time AI can be programmed via abstract ethics, it will have upended so much that its just hard to reason about from our current position.
I hope "AI ethics" are focused on stuff that's applicable now.
We've now got a greater motivation to solve them than before: so we can answer the question "will an AI following this set of beliefs eventually end up killing us all?"