Announcing a contest: EA Criticism and Red Teaming
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Lizka·finm·jtm
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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
This EA Forum post is relevant to AI safety culture as it reflects efforts within the EA community—which heavily overlaps with AI safety—to institutionalize adversarial critique and epistemic humility as correctives to potential groupthink.
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Opportunities to take actionBuilding effective altruismCriticism and Red Teaming ContestPrizes and contestsCriticism of effective altruismRed teaming
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Importance: 42/100news
Summary
Announces a contest inviting critical essays and red-teaming analyses of Effective Altruism (EA) ideas, organizations, and practices. The contest aims to surface well-reasoned critiques to improve EA's epistemic culture and identify blind spots. Prizes are offered for the best submissions across multiple categories.
Key Points
- •Contest invites substantive criticism of EA ideas, strategies, organizations, and the broader EA ecosystem to strengthen epistemic rigor.
- •Prizes awarded across categories including critiques of EA cause prioritization, movement culture, and specific interventions.
- •Motivated by EA's stated commitment to truth-seeking and willingness to update on strong arguments and evidence.
- •Submissions encouraged from both EA insiders and outside critics to diversify perspectives and challenge assumptions.
- •Red-teaming framing reflects recognition that internal blind spots and groupthink pose risks to EA's effectiveness.
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# Announcing a contest: EA Criticism and Red Teaming
By Lizka, finm, jtm
Published: 2022-06-01
***Update from October 2022:** This contest has wrapped up. You can* [*see the winners of the contest here*](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YgbpxJmEdFhFGpqci/winners-of-the-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming-contest)*. *
Introduction
------------
**tl;dr: We're running a writing contest for critically engaging with theory or work in effective altruism (EA). **
**Submissions can be in a range of** [**formats**](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/announcing-a-contest-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming#Formats) **(from fact-checking to philosophical critiques or major project evaluations); and can focus on a range of** [**subject matters**](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/announcing-a-contest-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming#What_to_submit) **(from assessing empirical or normative claims to evaluating organizations and practices).**
**We plan on distributing $100,000**, and we may end up awarding more than this amount if we get many excellent submissions.
The deadline is **September 1, 2022**. You can find the submission instructions [below](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hvmvrgcxJJ2pYR4X/announcing-a-contest-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming#How_to_apply). **Neither formal nor significant affiliation with effective altruism is required to enter into the contest.**
We are: [Lizka Vaintrob](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/lizka) (the [Content Specialist](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aeR2Pses3TjWW8H9t/hello-from-the-new-content-specialist-at-cea) at the Centre for Effective Altruism), [](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/jtm) [Fin Moorhouse](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/finm) (researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute), and [Joshua Teperowski Monrad](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/jtm) (biosecurity program associate at Effective Giving). The contest is funded via the [FTX Future Fund](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/future-fund) Regranting Program, with organizational support from the [Centre for Effective Altruism](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/centre-for-effective-altruism-1).
We [‘pre-announced’ this contest in March](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Fx8pWSLKGwuqsfuRQ/pre-announcing-a-contest-for-critiques-and-red-teaming).
The rest of this post gives more details, outlines the kinds of critical work we think are especially valuable, and explains our rationale. We’re also sharing [a companion resource for criticisms and red teams](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uuQDgiJJaswEyyzan/resource-for-criticisms-and-red-teaming).
How to apply
------------
Submit by posting on the EA Forum[^wyhqsiy6e4] and tagging the post[^3kedvlnnl] with [the contest’s tag](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/critiques-and-red-teaming-contest), or by filling out [this form](https://forms.gle/ydNTFC9rivVeo
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