building a bacteria that eats all metals would be world-ending: Most elements on the periodic table are metals. If you engineer a bacteria that eats all metals, it would eat things that are essential for life and kill us all.
Okay, what about a bacteria that only eats “stereotypical” metals, like steel or iron? I beg you to understand that you can’t just sub in different periodic table elements and expect a bacteria to work the same. There will always be some material that the bacteria wouldn’t work on that computers could still be made with. And even making a bacteria that only works on one material, but is able to spread over the entire planet, is well beyond our abilities.
I think list of lethalities is nonsense for other reasons, but he is correct in that trying to do a “pivotal act” is a really stupid plan.
List of lethalities is not by any means a “one stop shop”. If you don’t agree with Eliezer on 90% of the relevant issues, it’s completely unconvincing. For example, in that article he takes as an assumption that an AGI will be godlike level omnipotent, and that it will default to murderism.