EA Glossary

Motivation

Many terms within EA are assumed to be common knowledge, which can be intimidating for new community members who are unfamiliar with them. People may feel uncomfortable asking for definitions, fearing they will appear incompetent or not part of the group. This hinders knowledge transfer and understanding of ideas. I urge individuals to consider whether their conversation partner knows the terms they are using. To help, I have compiled a non-exhaustive glossary that includes EA-specific terms, subject-specific terms (philosophy, mathematics, economics, etc.), uncommon words, and communicative norms.

I hope this list can (1) be useful to newer EAs and (2) perhaps clarify to those who don’t interact with non-EAs words which may not be understood!

Please comment below terms you would add.

Glossary

Agentic

Definition: The quality of having initiative and ‘getting things done’. Coming up with ideas and then carrying them out.

Example sentence: “I’d like them to work for me; they’re very agentic.”

Backchain

Definition: Starting with the long-term goal and working backwards to ascertain the necessary steps to achieve it.

Example sentence: “How should we spread ideas about effective altruism? Let’s backchain from ‘people doing good in the word’ to find the best way to talk about EA.”

Base rate

Definition: The general probability of an event occurring in a given context before accounting for specific factors.

Example sentence: “What do you think the base rate for that happening is?”

Bayesian reasoning

Definition: a process whereby confidence in a belief increases or decreases (updated) based on new evidence or information.

Example sentence: “You should learn about Bayesian reasoning; it’s a good tool for making accurate judgements.”

Cause prio

Definition: Short for cause prioritisation. The process (and result) of determining which cause(s) one thinks is most important. This often involves thinking about scale (amount of suffering/good), tractability (see below) and neglectability (how many people are already working on an issue).

Example sentence: “What’s your current cause prio?”

Counterfactual

Definition: A hypothetical scenario with an alternative outcome. What would have occurred if X action had not been completed. This is often used concerning counterfactual good: how much good would still have occurred if X action had not been taken.

Example sentence: “What is the counterfactual impact of Sam writing this post? Probably one hour’s worth of time reading the forum.”

Credence / confidence level

Definition: The confidence in which one holds a belief. Often given using percentages.

Example sentence: “My credence in the world being round is very high.”

Epistemics

Definition: Ways of thinking, usually using evidence and reason. If someone has ‘good’ epistemics, they think well, and one would expect them to come to the correct conclusion given sufficient evidence and context.

Example sentence: “I wish my epistemics were as good as Harry’s.”

Feedback loop

Definition: Changing a process based on evaluations, feedback, data, etc. Feedback loops can be long (it takes a long time to get the information that will allow you to change the process) or short.

Example sentence: “The feedback loop for community building is long because we won’t know if people go into high-impact careers for a long time.”

Fermi Estimate

Definition: A short, rough calculation to make an approximate estimate. Also known as a BOTEC (back-of-the-envelope calculation).

Example sentence: “Let’s practice some fermi estimates as a group to improve our approximations.”

Foom

Definition: The ‘sound’ that the singularity would make.

Example sentence: “[Tongue-in-cheek] I can hear the foom already.”

Goodhart’s law

Definition: Where a metric or indicator that is initially used as a measure of progress or success ceases to be effective having become the target of optimization.

Example sentence: “The charity evaluation metric has become less useful because charities are aiming to meet the metric: this seems like Goodhart’s Law in action.”

Heavy-tailed

Definition: The majority of the impact of X, where X could be individuals, charities, methods etc, comes from a small group of actors. The probability distribution has the majority of the area at one end of the graph.

Example sentence: “The distribution of effective charities is heavy-tailed; we need to work out how to be as efficient as possible.”

Hedonic treadmill

Definition: The metaphor refers to someone constantly pursuing pleasure (hedonic) without a long-term goal, suggesting that fulfilment does not come from seeking short-term pleasures.

Example: “They’re spending all their money on material pleasures—they’re on the hedonic treadmill.”

High bar of evidence

Definition: Needing a lot of evidence to believe a claim.

Example sentence: “Saying that I should drop everything to work on AI requires a high bar of evidence in my opinion.”

Hot take

Definition: An opinion that has not been deliberated on for long.

Example sentence: “This is quite a hot take, so don’t judge it too harshly.”

*I claim

Definition: Used to suggest that one thinks X but is not certain of X. Used to signal epistemic humility.

Example sentence: “I claim that animal suffering is important.”

*I guess

Definition: Again, used to signal good epistemics. This is used A LOT and can become slightly tiresome!

Example sentence: “I guess I agree with your point.”

Lightning talks

Definition: A short, concise, and high-impact presentation or speech that aims to communicate ideas.

Example sentence: “Let’s all do a lightning talk of 1-minute each; maybe we’ll learn about things we disagree on.”

Memetic/Information hazard

Definition: The danger that comes from information becoming public.

Example: “The exact instructions for how to build a bomb is an information hazard.”

Model

Definition: Frameworks used to understand complex systems.

Example sentence: “What’s your model for coming to that conclusion.”

Moral circle

Definition: The beings one believes to be worthy of moral consideration.

Example sentence: “I think insects should be included in the moral circle”.

Nerd snipe

Definition: A situation that appeals to intellectually inclined people.

Example sentence: “They nerd-sniped the room with a complex example.”

Optimise

Definition: Maximizing the positive impact/value of a course of action.

Example sentence: “I’ve optimized my diet to be as healthy as possible.”

Or something

Definition: Used at the end of a sentence to indicate that someone is not certain about this. Used to signal good epistemics.

Example sentence: “It seems that building the effective altruism community leads to good outcomes, or something.”

Possible world

Definition: An alternative reality in which things are different. A ‘close’ possible world is a world in which things are not too different; a ‘far’ possible world is a world in which things are very different.

Example sentence: “The possible world where the temperature is 1 degree higher is very close.”

Pre-mortem

Definition: A technique used to identify potential failures and mitigate for them. Also known as murphy-jitsu.

Example sentence: “Have you done your pre-mortem before starting your project?”

Prescriptive

Definition: An ethical framework/judgement that seeks to inform people in an action-guiding way.

Example sentence: “Do you mean that prescriptively?”.

Priors

Definition: The initial beliefs, assumptions, or probabilities assigned to certain hypotheses, causes, or interventions before considering new evidence or information.

Example sentence: “What are your priors for what you just said?”

Rat(ty)

Definition: A rationalist: someone who is identified with the rationalist movement.

Example sentence: “They’re a rat, it makes sense they speak in a ratty way.”

Rationalist movement

Definition: A philosophical and intellectual movement that places a strong emphasis on reason, evidence, and critical thinking as the primary tools for understanding and improving the world.

Example sentence: “It makes sense they’re interested in using evidence; they’re part of the

rationalist movement.”

Red teaming

Definition: Critical analysis of X. It can be of effective altruism in general or a specific aspect, e.g., a cause, a project, a framework, an organization, etc.

Example sentence: “Let’s red-team that idea you just suggested.”

Scope

Definition: The magnitude of positive impact that could be achieved through one’s actions.

Example sentence: “The scope of animal suffering is huge.”

Signal

Definition: The intentional communication of one’s values through one’s actions.

Example sentence: “It’s important to signal how important we think working on AI safety is; hence, we pay people in the industry high salaries.”

Singularity

Definition: The point at which AI reaches a stage of rapid and exponential growth such that it profoundly impacts human civilization.

Example sentence: “How long do you think it will be until we reach the singularity?”

Spicy take

Definition: An opinion that goes against the norm.

Example sentence: “This is quite a spicy take, be warned!”

System 1

Definition: Fast, automatic, intuitive thinking.

Example sentence: “He got the wrong answer to that; he probably used system 1.”

System 2

Definition: Deliberative, slow, analytical thinking.

Example sentence: “To get the right answer to this question, one probably needs to use system 2.”

Take

Definition: An opinion.

Example sentence: “Do you have a take regarding what I just said?”

Take-off speeds

Definition: The length of time from AI becoming extremely powerful to when it reaches the ‘singularity’.

Example sentence: “What is your estimate for take-off speed?”

The alignment problem

Definition: The problem with trying to program AI to have human values.

Example sentence: “AI seems great, but I’m worried about the alignment problem.”

*This

Definition: I have found that when X makes a point, instead of Y saying “that sounds interesting,” Y may say “this sounds interesting.” I think, perhaps, this could be to keep the subject matter in the present tense as opposed to past, thereby suggesting to X that Y values the topic and is not dismissing it to then bring up their agenda. Often followed by ‘seems’.

Example sentence: “This seems like a good idea.”

Threat models

Definition: The assessment of potential risks to a project, idea, or system.

Example sentence: “What are the threat models for implementing this software?”

Tractable

Definition: How difficult it is to solve a problem.

Example sentence: “Solving wild animal suffering is not very tractable.”

Unilateralist’s curse

Definition: When an individual or small group of individuals takes action based on their own judgment, even though the collective welfare would have been better served if they had coordinated with others.

Example sentence: “The unilateralist’s curse is a real problem in this situation.”

Value drift

Definition: The change in one’s values over time. This usually refers to becoming *less* altruistic.

Example sentence: “I’ve noticed some value drift in my own thinking lately.”

Wisdom of crowds

Definition: The idea that the aggregate of collective decision making can be more accurate than an individual.

Example: “Not sure what to bet on? Follow the wisdom of crowds.”

X-risk

Definition: Existential risk: a risk that has the potential to permanently destroy humanity’s potential for a valuable future.

Example sentence: “Reducing X-risk is a crucial goal for the future of humanity.”

Zero-sum

Definition: Where the benefits afforded by one group come with a cost afforded to another.

Example sentence: “X wins whilst Y loses: this appears to be a zero-sum game.”