I think the
pared down bit is important: the whole point behind EA is to increase giving to some types of organization at the expense of giving to other types of organization based on success metrics. So if leading EA initiatives are dissuading (say) giving to electrify Africa because of a lack of efficacy data or wealth of existing funding, they might event be having a quantitative negative impact on those particular causes. If they instead promote an already exceptionally well-funded AI research project their friends work for whose impact on Microsoft's share price is much easier to quantify than their impact on preventing Hypothetical Cyberpunk Future, then that's a questionable/bad decision under their own utilitarian framework. Even if they're generating enormous interest in philanthropy and analytical rigour overall, the bit where they might be discouraging people from choosing better causes than the ones they choose is a problem.
Ultimately people have a right to donate their money to the causes they want whether it's having a quantifiable impact on reducing human suffering, taking moonshots on interesting speculative stuff or funding their ex-roomate's creative pursuits, but the whole point of the E in EA is to prioritise the former over the latter.
If leading EA organizations are inconsistent in the standards they apply, that's a problem for those particular organizations, and if it turns out that future AI risk and basic services for poor people tomorrow simply aren't readily comparable, that's a problem for the whole EA optimization framework.