Terraforming other planets might cause animals to come to exist in these planets, either because of intentional or unintentional behaviors. These animals might live net negative lives.
Also, we cannot rule out the possibility that there are already wild “animals” (or any form of sentient beings) who might be suffering from net negative lives in other planets. (this does not relate directly to the Fermi Paradox, which is highly intelligent lives, not lives per se)
Relevant research include:
Whether wild animals lead net negative or positive lives on earth, under what conditions. And whether this might hold the same in different planets.
Tracking, or even doing research on using AI and robotics to monitor and intervene with habitats. This might be critical if there planets there are planets that has wild “animals”, but are uninhabitable for humans to stay close and monitor (or even intervene with) the welfare of these animals.
Communication strategies related to wild animal welfare, as it seem to tend to cause controversy, if not outrage.
Philosophical research, including population ethics, environmental ethics, comparing welfare/suffering between species, moral uncertainty, suffering-focused vs non-suffering focused ethics.
General philosophical work on the ethics of space governance, in relation to nonhuman animals.
Another great concern of mine is that even if biological humans are completely replaced with ems or de novo artificial intelligence, these processes will probably run on great server farms that likely produce heat and need cooling. That results in a temperature gradient that might make it possible for small sentient beings, such as invertebrates, to live there. Their conditions may be bad, they may be r-strategists and suffer in great proportions, and they may also be numerous if these AI server farms spread throughout the whole light cone of the future.
My intuition is that very few people (maybe Simon Eckerström Liedholm?) have thought about this so far, so maybe there are easy interventions to make that less likely to happen.
Wild animal suffering in space
Space governance, moral circle expansion.
Terraforming other planets might cause animals to come to exist in these planets, either because of intentional or unintentional behaviors. These animals might live net negative lives.
Also, we cannot rule out the possibility that there are already wild “animals” (or any form of sentient beings) who might be suffering from net negative lives in other planets. (this does not relate directly to the Fermi Paradox, which is highly intelligent lives, not lives per se)
Relevant research include:
Whether wild animals lead net negative or positive lives on earth, under what conditions. And whether this might hold the same in different planets.
Tracking, or even doing research on using AI and robotics to monitor and intervene with habitats. This might be critical if there planets there are planets that has wild “animals”, but are uninhabitable for humans to stay close and monitor (or even intervene with) the welfare of these animals.
Communication strategies related to wild animal welfare, as it seem to tend to cause controversy, if not outrage.
Philosophical research, including population ethics, environmental ethics, comparing welfare/suffering between species, moral uncertainty, suffering-focused vs non-suffering focused ethics.
General philosophical work on the ethics of space governance, in relation to nonhuman animals.
Another great concern of mine is that even if biological humans are completely replaced with ems or de novo artificial intelligence, these processes will probably run on great server farms that likely produce heat and need cooling. That results in a temperature gradient that might make it possible for small sentient beings, such as invertebrates, to live there. Their conditions may be bad, they may be r-strategists and suffer in great proportions, and they may also be numerous if these AI server farms spread throughout the whole light cone of the future.
My intuition is that very few people (maybe Simon Eckerström Liedholm?) have thought about this so far, so maybe there are easy interventions to make that less likely to happen.
Brian Tomasik and Michael Dello-Iacovo have related articles.
Here’s a related question I asked.