On the first point, we tried to provide general formulae that allow people to input their own risk weightings, welfare ranges, probabilities of sentience, etc. We did use RP’s estimates as a starting point for setting these parameters. At some points (like fn 23), we note important thresholds at which a model will render different verdicts about causes. If anyone has judgments about various parameters and choices of risk models, we’re happy to hear them!
On the second point, I totally agree that welfare range matters as well (so your point isn’t nitpicky). I spoke too quickly. We incorporate this in our estimations of how much value is produced by various interventions (we assume that shrimp interventions create less value/individual than human ones).
On the third point, a few things to say. First, while there are some approaches to ambiguity aversion in the literature, we haven’t committed to or formally explored any one of them here (for various reasons). If you like a view that penalizes ambiguity—with more ambiguous probabilities penalized more strongly—then the more uncertain you are about the target species’ sentience, the more you should avoid gambles involving them. Second, we suspect that we’re very certain about the probability of human sentience, pretty certain about chickens, pretty uncertain about shrimp, and really uncertain about AIs. For example, I will entertain a pretty narrow range of probabilities about chicken sentience (say, between .75 and 1) but a much wider range for shrimp (say, between .05 and .75). To the extent that more research would resolve these ambiguities, and there is more ambiguity regarding invertebrates and AI, then we should care a lot about researching them!
Thanks for your comments, Nick.
On the first point, we tried to provide general formulae that allow people to input their own risk weightings, welfare ranges, probabilities of sentience, etc. We did use RP’s estimates as a starting point for setting these parameters. At some points (like fn 23), we note important thresholds at which a model will render different verdicts about causes. If anyone has judgments about various parameters and choices of risk models, we’re happy to hear them!
On the second point, I totally agree that welfare range matters as well (so your point isn’t nitpicky). I spoke too quickly. We incorporate this in our estimations of how much value is produced by various interventions (we assume that shrimp interventions create less value/individual than human ones).
On the third point, a few things to say. First, while there are some approaches to ambiguity aversion in the literature, we haven’t committed to or formally explored any one of them here (for various reasons). If you like a view that penalizes ambiguity—with more ambiguous probabilities penalized more strongly—then the more uncertain you are about the target species’ sentience, the more you should avoid gambles involving them. Second, we suspect that we’re very certain about the probability of human sentience, pretty certain about chickens, pretty uncertain about shrimp, and really uncertain about AIs. For example, I will entertain a pretty narrow range of probabilities about chicken sentience (say, between .75 and 1) but a much wider range for shrimp (say, between .05 and .75). To the extent that more research would resolve these ambiguities, and there is more ambiguity regarding invertebrates and AI, then we should care a lot about researching them!