To add to this, I would like to emphasize the lack of reasoning transparency in the current estimates as one of our main concerns—and not just the estimates of the value of additional high-impact EAs—but especially those of the value of community building roles at (top) universities and to what degree university groups ‘create’ these high-impact EAs (which potentially becomes even more dubious when HEAs are used as a proxy metric for impact, for reasons similar to your first bullet point).
We originally had these estimates as the main red teaming topic in mind, but we soon figured out there wasn’t enough substance to turn this topic into a red team by itself, as the estimates mainly seemed to stem from guesstimates.
Personal check-for-understanding: would this be a fair bullet-point summary?
Enthusiastically engaging with EA in college != actually having an impact
Quantifying the value of an additional high-impact EA is hard
Counterfactual impact of a community-builder is unclear, and plausibly negative
Assorted optics concerns: lack of rigor, self-aggrandizement, elitism, impersonalness
Yep, that seems right
To add to this, I would like to emphasize the lack of reasoning transparency in the current estimates as one of our main concerns—and not just the estimates of the value of additional high-impact EAs—but especially those of the value of community building roles at (top) universities and to what degree university groups ‘create’ these high-impact EAs (which potentially becomes even more dubious when HEAs are used as a proxy metric for impact, for reasons similar to your first bullet point).
We originally had these estimates as the main red teaming topic in mind, but we soon figured out there wasn’t enough substance to turn this topic into a red team by itself, as the estimates mainly seemed to stem from guesstimates.