I have no particular opinion on the matter — though, full disclosure, I did join the mailing lists of both groups when I was trying to start a Master’s degree p

I have no particular opinion on the matter — though, full disclosure, I did join the mailing lists of both groups when I was trying to start a Master’s degree program and found the resulting messaging and an AI safety study group in particular sufficiently high-noise and ill-considered that I unsubscribed — and would point you at the “controversies” section of Wikipedia on EA, but “it seems pretty reasonable so far” and “as far as I can tell [xyz] isn’t a cult” are pretty classically things someone just entering a cult would say.