I think the broad strokes are mostly similar, but that a bunch of relevant details are different.
Yes, a large collective of near-human AI that is allowed to interact freely over a (subjectively) long period of time is presumably roughly as hard to understand and control as a Bostrom/Yudkowsky-esque God in a box. However, in this scenario, we have the option to not allow free interaction between multiple instances, while still being able to extract useful work from them. It is also probably much easier to align a system that is not of overwhelming intelligence, and this could be done before the AIs are allowed to interact. We might also be able to significantly influence their collective behaviour by controlling the initial conditions of their interactions (similarly to how institutions and cultural norms have a substantial long-term impact on the trajectory of a country, for example). It is also more plausible that humans (or human simulations or emulations) could be kept in the loop for a long time period in this scenario. Moreover, if intelligence is bottle-necked by external resources (such as memory, data, CPU cycles, etc) rather than internal algorithmic efficiency, then you can exert more control over the resulting intelligence explosion by controlling those resources. Etc etc.
I think the broad strokes are mostly similar, but that a bunch of relevant details are different.
Yes, a large collective of near-human AI that is allowed to interact freely over a (subjectively) long period of time is presumably roughly as hard to understand and control as a Bostrom/Yudkowsky-esque God in a box. However, in this scenario, we have the option to not allow free interaction between multiple instances, while still being able to extract useful work from them. It is also probably much easier to align a system that is not of overwhelming intelligence, and this could be done before the AIs are allowed to interact. We might also be able to significantly influence their collective behaviour by controlling the initial conditions of their interactions (similarly to how institutions and cultural norms have a substantial long-term impact on the trajectory of a country, for example). It is also more plausible that humans (or human simulations or emulations) could be kept in the loop for a long time period in this scenario. Moreover, if intelligence is bottle-necked by external resources (such as memory, data, CPU cycles, etc) rather than internal algorithmic efficiency, then you can exert more control over the resulting intelligence explosion by controlling those resources. Etc etc.