Unflattering aspects of Effective Altruism

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2024·EA Forum·forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/coWvsGuJPyiqBdrhC/unfla...

Author

NunoSempere

Credibility Rating

3/5

Good(3)

Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.

Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum

An EA Forum post offering internal critique of the Effective Altruism movement; relevant to AI safety audiences because EA institutions heavily fund and shape alignment research priorities and community norms.

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192

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Forum

eaforum

Forum Tags

Building effective altruismCommunityCriticism of effective altruism

Metadata

Importance: 30/100commentary

Summary

A critical self-examination of the Effective Altruism movement, highlighting internal contradictions, cultural blind spots, and behaviors that undermine EA's stated values. The post encourages honest reflection on EA's shortcomings to improve the movement's integrity and effectiveness.

Key Points

•Identifies ways EA culture can be insular, status-driven, or performative despite professing impartiality and rigor
•Critiques tendencies toward groupthink and deference to high-status community members over independent reasoning
•Highlights potential disconnect between EA's stated priorities and how resources and attention are actually allocated
•Encourages intellectual honesty and self-criticism as essential to EA's long-term credibility and impact
•Relevant to AI safety insofar as EA is a major funding and community hub for existential risk and alignment work

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# Unflattering aspects of Effective Altruism
By NunoSempere
Published: 2024-03-15
I've been writing a few posts critical of EA over at my [blog](https://nunosempere.com/). They might be of interest to people here:
 
- [Unflattering aspects of Effective Altruism](https://nunosempere.com/blog/2024/03/05/unflattering-aspects-of-ea/)
- [Alternative Visions of Effective Altruism](https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/12/27/alternative-visions-of-ea/)
- [Auftragstaktik](https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/11/30/auftragstaktik/)
- [Hurdles of using forecasting as a tool for making sense of AI progress](https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/11/07/hurdles-forecasting-ai/)
- [Brief thoughts on CEA’s stewardship of the EA Forum](https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/10/15/ea-forum-stewardship/)
- [Why are we not harder, better, faster, stronger?](https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/07/19/better-harder-faster-stronger/)
- ...and there are a few smaller pieces on [my blog](https://nunosempere.com/blog/) as well.

I appreciate comments and perspectives anywhere, but prefer them over at the individual posts at my blog, since I have a large number of disagreements with the EA Forum's approach to moderation, curation, aesthetics or cost-effectiveness.

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