Executive summary: Precision livestock farming (PLF) AI technologies will likely increase the total number of animals living in miserable factory farm conditions, so animal advocates should consider campaigning to restrict PLF use in industrial settings.
Key points:
PLF involves using AI to monitor and control aspects of animal farming, with uncertain per-animal welfare impacts but likely increases in total animals farmed.
Efficiency gains from PLF will lower costs and enable scaling up animal farming operations.
Existing analyses of PLF underweight the potential harms from increasing total animal populations.
Promoting positive PLF use cases is challenging; advocating to restrict PLF in factory farms may be more impactful.
Political opportunities to restrict PLF may exist due to AI policy influence networks, potential coalitions with small farmers, background public support, and delayed industry costs.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Precision livestock farming (PLF) AI technologies will likely increase the total number of animals living in miserable factory farm conditions, so animal advocates should consider campaigning to restrict PLF use in industrial settings.
Key points:
PLF involves using AI to monitor and control aspects of animal farming, with uncertain per-animal welfare impacts but likely increases in total animals farmed.
Efficiency gains from PLF will lower costs and enable scaling up animal farming operations.
Existing analyses of PLF underweight the potential harms from increasing total animal populations.
Promoting positive PLF use cases is challenging; advocating to restrict PLF in factory farms may be more impactful.
Political opportunities to restrict PLF may exist due to AI policy influence networks, potential coalitions with small farmers, background public support, and delayed industry costs.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.