All spammers can justify spamming to themselves.
That no utilitarian argument. I don't see why it should convince me at all.
Take it as a trolly problem. There are important issues where people die and there are issues where one just acts out tribal loyality. In this case I do see no good reason for tribal loyality given what's at stake.
People are not going to die if you refrain from deliberately spamming WIkipedia. There should be a Godwin-like law about this sort of comparison. (That's quite apart from your failure to calculate the damage to MIRI's reputation if they become known as spammers.)
Instead, see if you can get organic coverage going. Can MIRI get press coverage about the issue, if they feel it's to their benefit to do so? (This should probably be something directed from MIRI itself.) Get journalists seriously talking about the Friendly AI issue? Should be able to be swung.
There's a big Hollywood movie coming out with an apocalyptic Singularity-like story, called Transcendence. (IMDB, Wiki, official site) With an A-list cast and big budget, I contend this movie is the front-runner to be 2014's most significant influence on discussions of superintelligence outside specialist circles. Anyone hoping to influence those discussions should start preparing some talking points.
I don't see anybody here agree with me on this. The movie has been briefly discussed on LW when it was first announced in March 2013, but since then, only the trailer (out since December) has been mentioned. MIRI hasn't published a word about it. This amazes me. We have three months till millions of people who never considered superintelligence are going to start thinking about it - is nobody bothering to craft a response to the movie yet? Shouldn't there be something that lazy journalists, given the job to write about this movie, can find?
Because if there isn't, they'll dismiss the danger of AI like Erik Sofge already did in an early piece about the movie for Popular Science, and nudge their readers to do so too. And that'd be a shame, wouldn't it?