If animals continue to exist in a post-AGI world, animal suffering will not persist
Suffering is part of the ecosystem. The only way to end animal suffering altogether would be to wipe out all animal life. If the question was “most animal suffering”, I would have a different answer.
You aren’t thinking enough about the possibilities enabled by post singularity tech levels. You could eliminate animal suffering technologically in many different ways while still retaining something which looks superficially like nature.
For instance the animals might all get placed within carefully AI managed utopian environments (either rotating habitats or simulated) where their reproduction is controlled. Meanwhile on Earth you might just have cybernetic faux animals that are incapable of suffering or might even just be getting remotely controlled by AI who enjoy and are extremely proficient and perfectly acting out the role of animals so perfectly you couldn’t tell the difference.
Alternatively you might keep the animals within nature but modify them so as to massively reduce their suffering and increase their enjoyment while altering its behavior or environment so as to avoid the negative ecological consequences that would otherwise have. Most simply one can imagine the animals being cyborgs (though in principle advanced biotech could replace anything doable with cybernetics) with an AI that takes possession of their body whenever anything really bad is going to happen (putting its mind in stasis, or into a simulated utopia for a brief while), then hands control back later if its still alive (while rewriting memories or affecting behavior to keep abnormal behavior from resulting) while of course causing the animal to act like it normally might from an injury, even though its actual suffering is minimal to nonexistent.
I could go on all day: My point is there’s a lot of options.
Fair enough! You’re right, I hadn’t considered those options.
The options you’re discussing amount to the total and permanent destruction of what most people call “nature”/”the natural order of things”. I think if humanity remains in control, these options will be unpopular. But I could be wrong, and humanity might not remain in control.
I think a lot of people’s feelings about nature are due to a combination of ignorance/denial of the sheer scope of egregious suffering in nature and not seriously considering the possibility of any alternative.
After all when people see a wild animal actively suffering they tend to want to try to alleviate it, extend that treatment to every animal though and you can at best have something that looks like nature. That being said people would surely redefine nature in such a scenario, so they could still claim they weren’t destroying nature.
Suffering is part of the ecosystem. The only way to end animal suffering altogether would be to wipe out all animal life. If the question was “most animal suffering”, I would have a different answer.
You aren’t thinking enough about the possibilities enabled by post singularity tech levels. You could eliminate animal suffering technologically in many different ways while still retaining something which looks superficially like nature.
For instance the animals might all get placed within carefully AI managed utopian environments (either rotating habitats or simulated) where their reproduction is controlled. Meanwhile on Earth you might just have cybernetic faux animals that are incapable of suffering or might even just be getting remotely controlled by AI who enjoy and are extremely proficient and perfectly acting out the role of animals so perfectly you couldn’t tell the difference.
Alternatively you might keep the animals within nature but modify them so as to massively reduce their suffering and increase their enjoyment while altering its behavior or environment so as to avoid the negative ecological consequences that would otherwise have. Most simply one can imagine the animals being cyborgs (though in principle advanced biotech could replace anything doable with cybernetics) with an AI that takes possession of their body whenever anything really bad is going to happen (putting its mind in stasis, or into a simulated utopia for a brief while), then hands control back later if its still alive (while rewriting memories or affecting behavior to keep abnormal behavior from resulting) while of course causing the animal to act like it normally might from an injury, even though its actual suffering is minimal to nonexistent.
I could go on all day: My point is there’s a lot of options.
Fair enough! You’re right, I hadn’t considered those options.
The options you’re discussing amount to the total and permanent destruction of what most people call “nature”/”the natural order of things”. I think if humanity remains in control, these options will be unpopular. But I could be wrong, and humanity might not remain in control.
I think a lot of people’s feelings about nature are due to a combination of ignorance/denial of the sheer scope of egregious suffering in nature and not seriously considering the possibility of any alternative.
After all when people see a wild animal actively suffering they tend to want to try to alleviate it, extend that treatment to every animal though and you can at best have something that looks like nature.
That being said people would surely redefine nature in such a scenario, so they could still claim they weren’t destroying nature.