In the interests of accessibility to more of the general public, I think it’s a good idea to have references on the first instance of an acronym or idiomatic concept (especially if it’s a main point of the article).
I’m a casual reader of LessWrong, Inside of articles, I usually find some term or abbreviation which refers to a concept I have no idea about. In this article, I came across FAI (which apparently means Friendly AI?) and paperclipping. They’re not completely unGoogleable, but not explaining these terms, even parenthetically, seems self-defeating. It’s against spreading the ideas in the article to other people who don’t already share your views.
I felt a bit uneasy with that as well. Does this sort of behaviour encourage gambling-like activities? Is an adult raised with the gambling reward more likely to walk into a casino and risk his family’s nest egg? Though, in the best case, the child grows up learning how to identify positive habits and trick himself into doing them (e.g. with the fishbowl of rewards).
Also, your comment on how these jobs should be “just expected” reminds me of sports contracts. A stand-up comedian (I can’t remember) said that contracts had cash bonuses if the player did not commit any crimes (e.g. illegal drugs). I guess sometimes, federal prosecution is not a strong enough motivator.