That sounds exciting too. I don't know enough about this field to get into a debate about whether to save the metaphorical whales or the metaphorical pandas first. Both approaches are complicated. I am glad the MIRI exists, and I wish the researchers good luck.

My main point re: "steel-manning" the MIRI mission is that you need to make testable predictions and then test them or else you're just doing philosophy and/or politics.

Make it scientific articles instead. Thus MIRI will get more publications. :D

I suspect that either would be of sufficient interest that if well done it could get published. Also, there's a danger in going down research avenues simply because they are more publishable.

You can also make different expect systems compete with each other by trying to get most publications and citations.

So instead o f paper clip maximizers we end up with a world turned into researchpapertronium?

(This last bit is a joke- I think your basic idea is sound.)