Animal welfare 1) relates to animal agriculture, 2) which relates to the agricultural industry lobby, which 3) influences the government.
1) Animal welfare-animal agriculture. Animal welfare advocates form connections with the producers in a way in which they have certain influence over their decisions, considering that producers may choose to lose profit for uncertain return.
2) Animal agriculture—agriculture lobby. Companies of various sizes join associations that lobby governments. For example, the chicken producer Mountaire spent almost $6m on lobbying last fiscal year.[1]
3) Agriculture lobby—government. Companies can facilitate introductions of the welfare advocates’ wider network through their connections, attach technological and AI safety to their dialogues, or try get extra benefits by relating their interests to the catchy AI safety topic.
The introduction of AI safety through a trusted network[2] can motivate the government to internalizes interest in AI safety. Then, AI safety research would be sought for and thus better tailored to the current needs and accepted/implemented.
Further, animal welfare advocates develop generalizable skills, know-how, and capacity to influence national and regional decisionmaking. For example, an animal welfare org in Poland influenced a politician soon after their election by a skillful mention of him adhering to various promises but just not being able to summon the welfare one. They also conducted a research on him having a pet etc and tailored the appeal specifically while taking advantage of the timing. These skills can be less developed in AI safety, where academic paper writing, perhaps less accessible to politicians, is prioritized. So, animal welfare can be beneficial to AI safety also in more direct political advocacy.
a lot of the animal activism → animal agriculture lobby connection is adversarial, so this will be an unusually bad way to do outreach to them.
agricultural lobby → government efforts in AI safety also feels a bit weak to me. I’d be more excited about transferring of efforts/learnings from biosecurity lobbying, or prediction markets, or maybe even global health and development lobbying.
Animal welfare 1) relates to animal agriculture, 2) which relates to the agricultural industry lobby, which 3) influences the government.
1) Animal welfare-animal agriculture. Animal welfare advocates form connections with the producers in a way in which they have certain influence over their decisions, considering that producers may choose to lose profit for uncertain return.
2) Animal agriculture—agriculture lobby. Companies of various sizes join associations that lobby governments. For example, the chicken producer Mountaire spent almost $6m on lobbying last fiscal year.[1]
3) Agriculture lobby—government. Companies can facilitate introductions of the welfare advocates’ wider network through their connections, attach technological and AI safety to their dialogues, or try get extra benefits by relating their interests to the catchy AI safety topic.
The introduction of AI safety through a trusted network[2] can motivate the government to internalizes interest in AI safety. Then, AI safety research would be sought for and thus better tailored to the current needs and accepted/implemented.
Further, animal welfare advocates develop generalizable skills, know-how, and capacity to influence national and regional decisionmaking. For example, an animal welfare org in Poland influenced a politician soon after their election by a skillful mention of him adhering to various promises but just not being able to summon the welfare one. They also conducted a research on him having a pet etc and tailored the appeal specifically while taking advantage of the timing. These skills can be less developed in AI safety, where academic paper writing, perhaps less accessible to politicians, is prioritized. So, animal welfare can be beneficial to AI safety also in more direct political advocacy.
Note that most investments go to conservatives, which is a group possibly less currently engaged with EA.
Apparently, the US agri lobby/govt cooperation has existed since the late 19th century.
Thanks for the explanation. My impression is that
a lot of the animal activism → animal agriculture lobby connection is adversarial, so this will be an unusually bad way to do outreach to them.
agricultural lobby → government efforts in AI safety also feels a bit weak to me. I’d be more excited about transferring of efforts/learnings from biosecurity lobbying, or prediction markets, or maybe even global health and development lobbying.