That they may be more rational and less idealistic than I may otherwise have guessed. There are many potential benefits the SIAI could gain from an affiliation with those inside the higher status AGI communities. Knowing who to know has many uses unrelated to knowing what to know.

Indeed. I read part of this post as implying that his position had at least a little bit to do with gaining status from affiliating with him ("It has similarly been a general rule with the Singularity Institute that, whatever it is we're supposed to do to be more credible, when we actually do it, nothing much changes. 'Do you do any sort of code development? I'm not interested in supporting an organization that doesn't develop code' -> OpenCog -> nothing changes. 'Eliezer Yudkowsky lacks academic credentials' -> Professor Ben Goertzel installed as Director of Research -> nothing changes.").

There are many potential benefits the SIAI could gain from an affiliation with those inside the higher status AGI communities. Knowing who to know has many uses unrelated to knowing what to know.

Does this suggest that founding a stealth AGI institute (to coordinate conferences, and communication between researchers) might be suited to oversee and influence potential undertakings that could lead to imminent high-risk situations?

By the way, I noticed from my server logs that the Institute for Defense Analyses seems to be reading LW. They visited my homepage, referred by my LW profile. So one should think about the consequences of discussing such matters in public, respectively not doing so.