(1) Write a short, introductory, thoroughly cited guide on each major concept employed by SIAI / LW.
As an example, this is what I'm currently doing for the point about why standard, simple designs for machine ethics will result in disaster if implemented in a superintelligent machine. Right now, you have to read hundreds of pages of dense material that references unusual terms described in hundreds of other pages all across Less Wrong and SIAI's website. That is unnecessary, and doesn't help public perception of SIAI / LW. It looks like we're being purposely obscurantist and cult-like.
Why an intelligence explosion is probable is another good example of this.
(2) Engage the professional community. Somebody goes to SIAI's page and looks for accomplishments and they see not a single article in a peer-reviewed journal. Compare this to, um... the accomplishments page of every other 10-year research institute or university research program on the planet.
EDIT: I should note that in the course of not publishing papers in journals and engaging the mainstream community, SIAI has managed to be almost a decade ahead of everyone else. Having just read quite nearly the entirety of extant literature in the field of machine ethics, I can say with some confidence that the machine ethics field still isn't caught up to where Eliezer was circa 2001.
So of course SIAI can work much more quickly if it doesn't bother to absorb the entirety of the (mostly useless) machine ethics literature and then write papers that use the same language and style as the mainstream community, and cites all the same papers.
The problem is that if you don't write all those papers, then people keep asking you dumb questions about "Why can't we just tell it to maximize human happiness?" You have to keep answering that question because there is no readable, thoroughly-cited, mainstream-language guide that answers those types of questions. (Except, the one I'm writing now.)
Also, not publishing those papers in mainstream journals leaves you with less credibility in the eyes of journals who are savvy enough to know there is a difference between conference papers and those accepted to mainstream journals.
So I think it's worth all that effort, though probably not for somebody like Yudkowsky. He should be working on TDT and CEV, I imagine. Not reading papers about Kantian solutions to machine ethics.
I was recently thinking about the possibility that someone with a lot of influence might at some point try to damage LessWrong and the SIAI and what preemptive measures one could take to counter it.
If you believe that the SIAI does the most important work in the universe and if you believe that LessWrong serves the purpose of educating people to become more rational and subsequently understand the importance of trying to mitigate risks from AI, then you should care about public relations, you should try to communicate your honesty and well-intentioned motives as effectively as possible.
Public relations are very important because a good reputation is necessary to do the following:
An attack scenario
First one has to identify characteristics that could potentially be used to cast a damaging light on this community. Here the most obvious possibility seems to be to portray the SIAI, together with LessWrong, as a cult.
After some superficial examination an outsider might conclude the following about this community:
Most of this might sound wrong to the well-read LessWrong reader. But how would those points be received by mediocre rationalists who don't know what you know, especially if eloquently summarized by a famous and respected person?
Preemptive measures
How one might counter such conclusions:
So what do you think needs improvement and what would you do about it?