I’m personally pretty skeptical of lab-grown meat after looking into it for a while (see here, here, and here). I do think some investment into the space makes sense for reasons similar to your argument, but I’m personally a bit skeptical of “I think the science of my current approach doesn’t work and will never work but there’s a small chance I’m wrong so it might make sense to work on it anyway” as a way to do science.*
My guess is that the future replacement for meat will not look like lab-grown mammalian cells, and if it does, how we get there will look like radically different approaches than the way we’re currently doing it (e.g. substantially more AI-assisted).
I do tentatively think something in the general shape of your critique is right, and more effort should be spent mapping out the theory of victory for farmed animal agriculture in general, and for technological solutions in particular (see also).
* (I intuitively think this type of probabilistic hedging mentality is more natural to threat analysis or political wins. This is an empirical question though, and I’m also confused here).
I’m personally pretty skeptical of lab-grown meat after looking into it for a while (see here, here, and here). I do think some investment into the space makes sense for reasons similar to your argument, but I’m personally a bit skeptical of “I think the science of my current approach doesn’t work and will never work but there’s a small chance I’m wrong so it might make sense to work on it anyway” as a way to do science.*
My guess is that the future replacement for meat will not look like lab-grown mammalian cells, and if it does, how we get there will look like radically different approaches than the way we’re currently doing it (e.g. substantially more AI-assisted).
I do tentatively think something in the general shape of your critique is right, and more effort should be spent mapping out the theory of victory for farmed animal agriculture in general, and for technological solutions in particular (see also).
* (I intuitively think this type of probabilistic hedging mentality is more natural to threat analysis or political wins. This is an empirical question though, and I’m also confused here).