Addendum to my last post:

I forgot to emphasize: the marketing aspect might be more important then everything else. I guess a lot of people have no idea what the singularity institute is about, etc... So this experiment would be a great way to create awareness. And awareness means more donations. On the other hand I sometimes wonder if drawing too much attention on the subject of powerful AIs might backfire if the wrong people try to get hold of this technology for bad purposes.