Pre-announcing a contest for critiques and red teaming

Abstract

The Effective Altruism Forum plans to run a contest encouraging critical engagement with theory or work from the EA community. The contest seeks to support and incentivize high-quality critical work, including critiques, investigations, and ‘red teaming’ exercises, as these are believed to be undersupplied relative to their value within the growing EA community. The rationale is that it’s increasingly crucial to scrutinize the ideas and assumptions behind EA’s key decisions as well as welcome outside experts to do the same. Submission guidelines proposed include criticality towards aspects of EA practice, the importance of the issues discussed, novelty, and constructiveness. The organizers also show an interest in promoting transparency, clarity of writing, and awareness of context while discouraging ad hominem and personally argumentative pieces. They invite initial thoughts and suggestions from readers regarding the planned competition. – AI-generated abstract.