EA - The $100,000 Truman Prize: Rewarding Anonymous EA Work by Drew Spartz

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The $100,000 Truman Prize: Rewarding Anonymous EA Work, published by Drew Spartz on September 22, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Harry Truman once said: "It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit" The Truman Prize, now live on EA prize platform Superlinear, recognizes Effective Altruists with $5,000-$10,000 prizes for declining credit in order to increase their impact, in ways that can't be publicized directly. Theory of change: EA promotes caring about effectiveness over other goals like getting credit, but wanting credit or recognition for your work is natural. Rewarding people for maximizing impact over credit increases the health and future effectiveness of the community. Example #1: Sam toils behind the scenes and makes a breakthrough on an important problem. Sam suggests the idea to, say, a political figure or other organization who can then take credit, because that leads to the breakthrough being more widely accepted. Anyone that knows what happened, including the person/org that gets credit, can nominate Sam for The Truman Prize on Superlinear. Superlinear passes on the nomination to a committee of well-respected EAs from diverse backgrounds. If one of them verifies that Sam actually did make a breakthrough and allowed someone better placed to take credit to increase impact, Superlinear awards Sam $10,000. The Truman Prize is the brainchild of David Manheim, and the judges are: Eliezer Yudkowsky Peter Wildeford Spencer Greenberg Cate Hall Julia Wise Gregory Lewis Luke Freeman Ozzie Gooen The criteria, generally speaking, is that if you can’t make an EA forum post about someone for doing something noteworthy in order to publicize what they have done, they could be eligible for the prize. Example #2: Greg works for the government. There are political or career consequences if it is publicly acknowledged that he’s working on something potentially controversial. Greg contributes an important idea to a research field and helps make it happen behind the scenes. Someone nominates him for The Truman Prize, and the committee asks someone in a position to know about what occurred, and confirms Greg’s contribution. Superlinear awards Greg $5,000, and announces that a prize was awarded to the originator of the research idea to a recipient to be named in 5 years. Example #3: Claire, a biosecurity researcher, blows the whistle internally on a potentially dangerous research direction which likely violates the Biological Weapons Convention. The organization doesn’t want this to be public, but an individual inside the organization could still confidentially nominate them for the Truman Prize, and depending on details and the potential infohazards, the prize might be awarded to Claire, without specifying what was done. Example #4: Max has a criminal record and troubled past. He’s reformed now, but his background makes him a liability for any person or org to publicly associate with him. He silently does good work behind the scenes, so someone that knows him nominates him for The Truman Prize on the basis of a specific critical contribution which was made to a now successful larger project. The committee awards the prize, and names Max, likely without naming the specific work done. Example #5: Steve has extreme political beliefs. It is risky for any person or org to work with him due to reputation risks. Steve knows this, but does apolitical high impact work behind the scenes anyways. Someone that knows Steve nominates him for The Truman Prize on the basis of a specific project which was not previously disclosed. The committee awards the prize and discloses the project, but not the individual, or vice-versa, to avoid undermining the project. Example #6: Morgan has recurring depression. Therefore, she does not want to work or associate wi...