It seems to me that it works more as a cop out when people accuse(d?) them of not publishing much: "We are doing research, we promise, but it is just too dangerous for the uninitiated, humanity is not ready and stuff."
Then there is the stuff they try to censor because they believe that merely thinking about these ideas would drive you crazy (even if they are the only known people exposed to such ideas who apparently had a mental breakdown).
In fariness they seem to have got better in the last year or so.
Getting better on the basilisk stuff probably has more to do with censorship being wildly counterproductive than changes on the estimated level of danger.
I'm pleased to announce friendly-artificial-intelligence, a google group intended for research-level discussion of problems in FAI and AGI, in particular for discussions that are highly technical and/or math intensive.
Some examples of possible discussion topics: naturalized induction, decision theory, tiling agents / Loebian obstacle, logical uncertainty...
I invite everyone who want to take part in FAI research to participate in the group. This obviously includes people affiliated with MIRI, FHI and CSER, people who attend MIRI workshops and participants of the southern california FAI workshop.
Please, come in and share your discoveries, ideas, thoughts, questions et cetera. See you there!