“ITN 201: pitfalls in ITN BOTECs” by Lizka

The fact that the ITN framework[1] can help us prioritize between problems feels almost magical to me. But when I see ITN BOTECs in the wild, I’m often very skeptical. It seems really easy for these estimates to be inadvertent “conclusion-laundering” — regurgitating the author's opinions in a quantitative or more robust-seeming form without actually providing any independent signal. And even when that's not the case, the bottom-line estimates can seem so noisy and ungrounded that I trust them less than my fuzzy, un-BOTECed intuitions.So I'm[2] sharing notes on some pitfalls that seem especially pernicious and common to (i) help BOTEC authors avoid these issues, (ii) nudge readers to be somewhat cautious about deferring to such estimates, and (iii) encourage people to supplement (and/or to replace) ITN BOTECs with other approaches. Note: I expect the post will make more sense to people who are already somewhat [...] ---Outline:(01:25) Brief outline of my views(04:54) 1. Illusions of tractability(05:17) a. Hard upper limits; our leverage may only cover a small fraction of the problem were hoping to solve(08:10) b. The cause-stuffing pump -- or why the 100x heuristic can bias us towards wider (and/or vaguely defined) problem areas(12:18) 2. Inflating neglectedness\*importance(12:24) a. Mismatched boundaries(14:39) b. Other ways neglectedness gets exaggerated or skewed(17:34) c. Using unrepresentative slices of total investment for comparisons of problems overall neglectedness(19:37) 3. Edge cases & other issues with ITN(20:54) 4. Precarious frameworks & the garbage-in, garbage-out effect(23:35) Thanks!--- First published: August 13th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ECYrN8aY42KyQbPZe/itn-201-pitfalls-in-itn-botecs --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.