One issue I could imagine is around this criterion (which also seems like the central one!)
Critical — the piece takes a critical or questioning stance towards some aspect of EA, theory or practice
Will the author need to end up disagreeing with the piece of theory or practice for the piece to qualify? If so, you’re incentivizing people to end up more negative than they might if they were to just try to figure out the truth about something that they were at first unsure of the truth/prudence of.
E.g. if I start out by thinking “I’m not sure that neglectedness should be a big consideration in EA, I think I’ll write a post about it” and then I think/learn more about it in the course of writing my post (which seems common since people often learn by writing), I’ll be incentivized to end up at “yep we should get rid of it” vs. “actually it does seem important after all”.
Maybe you want that effect (maybe that’s what it means to red team?) but it seems worth being explicit about so that people know how to interpret people’s conclusions!
I had a very similar reaction. Here’s a comment I’d previously offered in response to this idea:
I think “sceptical critiques” tend to be less good and useful, on average than “impassive, unbiased questioning”. Commissioning critiques is especially awkward, because then authors have to stick with the X is bad conclusion, even if that’s not where their investigation leads them. A better framing IMO is to say that you want people to question major premises, arguments, and conclusions of EA, and that you will accept pure sceptical critiques as a part of that, but that if, from investigating an issue, an author end up with a defense of an argument that fortifies EA, then that’s great too.
For what it’s worth I think I basically endorse that comment.
I definitely think an investigation that starts with a questioning attitude, and ends up less negative than the author’s initial priors, should count.
That said, some people probably do already just have useful, considered critiques in their heads that they just need to write out. It’d be good to hear them.
Also, presumably (convincing) negative conclusions for key claims are more informationally valuable than confirmatory ones, so it makes sense to explicitly encourage the kind of investigations that have the best chance of yielding those conclusions (because the claims they address look under-scrutinised).
makes sense! yeah as long as this is explicit in the final announcement it seems fine. I also think “what’s the best argument against X (and then separately do you buy it?)” could be a good format.
The basic idea of a minimal-trust investigation is suspending one’s trust in others’ judgments and trying to understand the case for and against some claim oneself, ideally to the point where one can (within the narrow slice one has investigated) keep up with experts.
I think a minimal trust investigation can end up being positive or negative. I suppose one could start off with a minimal trust investigation which could then turn into a red team if one disagrees with the generally accepted viewpoint.
I personally feel uncomfortable with a criterion being “critical” for the reasons you and others have mentioned.
Thank you, this is a really good point. By ‘critical’ I definitely intended to convey something more like “beginning with a critical mindset” (per JackM’s comment) and less like “definitely ending with a negative conclusion in cases where you’re critically assessing a claim you’re initially unsure about”.
This might not always be relevant. For instance, you might set out to find the strongest case against some claim, whether or not you end up endorsing it. As long as that’s explicit, it seems fine.
But in cases where someone is embarking on something like a minimal-trust investigation — approaching an uncertain claim from first principles — we should be incentivising the process, not the conclusion!
We’ll try to make sure to be clear about that in the proper announcement.
Cool! Glad to see this happening.
One issue I could imagine is around this criterion (which also seems like the central one!)
Will the author need to end up disagreeing with the piece of theory or practice for the piece to qualify? If so, you’re incentivizing people to end up more negative than they might if they were to just try to figure out the truth about something that they were at first unsure of the truth/prudence of.
E.g. if I start out by thinking “I’m not sure that neglectedness should be a big consideration in EA, I think I’ll write a post about it” and then I think/learn more about it in the course of writing my post (which seems common since people often learn by writing), I’ll be incentivized to end up at “yep we should get rid of it” vs. “actually it does seem important after all”.
Maybe you want that effect (maybe that’s what it means to red team?) but it seems worth being explicit about so that people know how to interpret people’s conclusions!
I had a very similar reaction. Here’s a comment I’d previously offered in response to this idea:
For what it’s worth I think I basically endorse that comment.
I definitely think an investigation that starts with a questioning attitude, and ends up less negative than the author’s initial priors, should count.
That said, some people probably do already just have useful, considered critiques in their heads that they just need to write out. It’d be good to hear them.
Also, presumably (convincing) negative conclusions for key claims are more informationally valuable than confirmatory ones, so it makes sense to explicitly encourage the kind of investigations that have the best chance of yielding those conclusions (because the claims they address look under-scrutinised).
makes sense! yeah as long as this is explicit in the final announcement it seems fine. I also think “what’s the best argument against X (and then separately do you buy it?)” could be a good format.
Worth noting that the post mentions that minimal-trust investigations are in scope. From that link:
I think a minimal trust investigation can end up being positive or negative. I suppose one could start off with a minimal trust investigation which could then turn into a red team if one disagrees with the generally accepted viewpoint.
I personally feel uncomfortable with a criterion being “critical” for the reasons you and others have mentioned.
Thank you, this is a really good point. By ‘critical’ I definitely intended to convey something more like “beginning with a critical mindset” (per JackM’s comment) and less like “definitely ending with a negative conclusion in cases where you’re critically assessing a claim you’re initially unsure about”.
This might not always be relevant. For instance, you might set out to find the strongest case against some claim, whether or not you end up endorsing it. As long as that’s explicit, it seems fine.
But in cases where someone is embarking on something like a minimal-trust investigation — approaching an uncertain claim from first principles — we should be incentivising the process, not the conclusion!
We’ll try to make sure to be clear about that in the proper announcement.