Not sure if you're saying I have an inflated opinion of MIRI or of MIRI's status. If it's the earlier, in my own opinion FWIW, is that what MIRI lacks in terms of academic status it well makes up by (initially) being the only org doing reasonably productive work in the area of safety research.

More specifically, AIMA mentions Friendly AI, and Yudkowsky by name, which is why I found the omission somewhat surprising.