I just meant that proposals to represent future non-human animals will likely gain less traction than the idea of representing future humans.
Ah, that makes sense, then.
However, perhaps the case of nonhuman animals differs in that it is often quite clear what policies would be better for animals (e.g. better welfare standards), whether itās current or future animals, and the bottleneck is just the lack of political will to do it. [...]
By contrast, it seems less clear what we could do now to benefit future moral agents (seeing as theyāll be able to decide for themselves what to do), so perhaps there is more of a need for prediction markets.
This is an interesting point, and I think thereās something to it. But I also tentatively think that the distinction might be less sharp than you suggest. (The following is again just quick thoughts.)
Firstly, it seems to me that we should currently have a lot of uncertainties about what would be better for animals. And it also seems that, in any case, much of the public probably is uncertain about a lot of relevant things (even if sufficient evidence to resolve those uncertainties does exist somewhere).
There are indeed some relatively obvious low-hanging fruit, but my guess would be that, for all the really big changes (e.g., phasing out factory farming, improving conditions for wild animals), it would be hard to say for sure what would be net-positive. For example, perhaps factory farmed animals have net positive lives, or could have net positive lives given some changes in conditions, in which case developing clean meat, increasing rates of veganism, etc. could be net negative (from a non-suffering-focused perspective), as it removes wellbeing from the world.
Of course, even if facing such uncertainties, expected value reasoning might strongly support one course of action. Relatedly, in reality, Iām quite strongly in favour of phasing out factory farming, and Iām personally a vegetarian-going-on-vegan. But I do think thereās room for some uncertainty there. And even if there are already arguments and evidence that should resolve that uncertainty for people, itās possible that those arguments and bits of evidence would be more complex or less convincing than something like āIn 2045, people/āexperts/āsome metric will be really really sure that animals wouldāve been better off if weād done X than if weād done Y.ā (But thatās just a hypothesis; I donāt know how convincing people would find such judgements-from-the-future.)
Secondly, it seems that there are several key things where itās quite clear what policies would be better for future moral agents, and the bottleneck is just the lack of political will to do it. (Or at least, where what would be better is about as clear as it is for many animal-related things.) E.g., reducing emissions; doing more technical AI safety research; more pandemic preparedness (i.e., I wouldāve said that last year; maybe now things are more where they should be). Perhaps the reason is that these policies relate to issues where future moral agents wonāt ābe able to decide for themselves what to doā, or at least where itād be much harder for them to do X than it is for us to do X.
Perhaps the summary of these ideas is that:
This sort of prediction market might be useful both for generating information and for building political will /ā changing motivations.
That might apply somewhat similarly both for what future moral agents would want and for what future moral patients would want
But that relies on getting the necessary support to set up such prediction markets and have people start paying attention, which might be harder in the case of future moral patients, as you note
Ah, that makes sense, then.
This is an interesting point, and I think thereās something to it. But I also tentatively think that the distinction might be less sharp than you suggest. (The following is again just quick thoughts.)
Firstly, it seems to me that we should currently have a lot of uncertainties about what would be better for animals. And it also seems that, in any case, much of the public probably is uncertain about a lot of relevant things (even if sufficient evidence to resolve those uncertainties does exist somewhere).
There are indeed some relatively obvious low-hanging fruit, but my guess would be that, for all the really big changes (e.g., phasing out factory farming, improving conditions for wild animals), it would be hard to say for sure what would be net-positive. For example, perhaps factory farmed animals have net positive lives, or could have net positive lives given some changes in conditions, in which case developing clean meat, increasing rates of veganism, etc. could be net negative (from a non-suffering-focused perspective), as it removes wellbeing from the world.
Of course, even if facing such uncertainties, expected value reasoning might strongly support one course of action. Relatedly, in reality, Iām quite strongly in favour of phasing out factory farming, and Iām personally a vegetarian-going-on-vegan. But I do think thereās room for some uncertainty there. And even if there are already arguments and evidence that should resolve that uncertainty for people, itās possible that those arguments and bits of evidence would be more complex or less convincing than something like āIn 2045, people/āexperts/āsome metric will be really really sure that animals wouldāve been better off if weād done X than if weād done Y.ā (But thatās just a hypothesis; I donāt know how convincing people would find such judgements-from-the-future.)
Secondly, it seems that there are several key things where itās quite clear what policies would be better for future moral agents, and the bottleneck is just the lack of political will to do it. (Or at least, where what would be better is about as clear as it is for many animal-related things.) E.g., reducing emissions; doing more technical AI safety research; more pandemic preparedness (i.e., I wouldāve said that last year; maybe now things are more where they should be). Perhaps the reason is that these policies relate to issues where future moral agents wonāt ābe able to decide for themselves what to doā, or at least where itād be much harder for them to do X than it is for us to do X.
Perhaps the summary of these ideas is that:
This sort of prediction market might be useful both for generating information and for building political will /ā changing motivations.
That might apply somewhat similarly both for what future moral agents would want and for what future moral patients would want
But that relies on getting the necessary support to set up such prediction markets and have people start paying attention, which might be harder in the case of future moral patients, as you note