Yes, outreach. Hinton has now won both the Turing award and the Nobel prize in physics. Basically, he gained maximum reputation. Nobody can convincingly doubt his respectability. If you meet anyone who dismisses warnings about extinction risk from superhuman AI as low status and outside the Overton window, they can be countered with referring to Hinton. He is the ultimate appeal-to-authority. (This is not a very rational argument, but dismissing an idea on the basis of status and Overton windows is even less so.)
Yes, outreach. Hinton has now won both the Turing award and the Nobel prize in physics. Basically, he gained maximum reputation. Nobody can convincingly doubt his respectability. If you meet anyone who dismisses warnings about extinction risk from superhuman AI as low status and outside the Overton window, they can be countered with referring to Hinton. He is the ultimate appeal-to-authority. (This is not a very rational argument, but dismissing an idea on the basis of status and Overton windows is even less so.)