AI alignment to humans will in practice avoid moral catastrophes to animals
Alignment to humans means (for me) that the AI would serve the intended goals of the user and their creators. Avoiding a moral catastrophe to animals, on the other hand, imply a ban to factory farming. Those are two separated things
That’s definitely a valid perspective, consistent with your 100% disagree answer. Other people think that aligned ASI would end things like factory farming due to abundance, cheap synthetic meat, uploading, shifts in values, or something else. There’s also debates around what it would mean for wild animals
I think it’s a good response, but definitely techno-optimism.
Firstly, we’re yet to see whether synthetic meat actually can be made more cheaply, right? Currently it seems like animals actually do make meat fairy efficiently when you consider the important work that their immune systems do (unless I’m mistaken, contamination is one of the main barriers to scaling up synthetic meat). And then, who’s to say that ASI won’t genetically engineer animals to produce meat more efficiently while ignoring their suffering.
Secondly, there’s the more complicated cultural reasons for continuing animal use. Consider that a lentil dal, seitan curry and beyond burger are already delicious—if it was only about efficiency we’d have stopped abusing animals already. But people like eating animals.
I’m very uncertain about these arguments, but I think it’s hard to know so I’m wary of anyone who’s too optimistic!
My perspective is that even though current meat production is quite efficient, from the fundamental physics there’s no way that growing a whole living being with a brain and bones and all that is the most efficient possible way of producing this (and immune systems are irrelevant if you have good enough isolation). I do agree that at our current tech level it seems like synthetic meat won’t be competitive anytime soon. While vegan alternatives are delicious to many people, it’s not exactly the same (though wanting to eat animals for psychological reasons is definitely part of it). Though I do agree that these issues are uncertain!
Alignment to humans means (for me) that the AI would serve the intended goals of the user and their creators. Avoiding a moral catastrophe to animals, on the other hand, imply a ban to factory farming. Those are two separated things
That’s definitely a valid perspective, consistent with your 100% disagree answer. Other people think that aligned ASI would end things like factory farming due to abundance, cheap synthetic meat, uploading, shifts in values, or something else. There’s also debates around what it would mean for wild animals
I think it’s a good response, but definitely techno-optimism.
Firstly, we’re yet to see whether synthetic meat actually can be made more cheaply, right? Currently it seems like animals actually do make meat fairy efficiently when you consider the important work that their immune systems do (unless I’m mistaken, contamination is one of the main barriers to scaling up synthetic meat). And then, who’s to say that ASI won’t genetically engineer animals to produce meat more efficiently while ignoring their suffering.
Secondly, there’s the more complicated cultural reasons for continuing animal use. Consider that a lentil dal, seitan curry and beyond burger are already delicious—if it was only about efficiency we’d have stopped abusing animals already. But people like eating animals.
I’m very uncertain about these arguments, but I think it’s hard to know so I’m wary of anyone who’s too optimistic!
My perspective is that even though current meat production is quite efficient, from the fundamental physics there’s no way that growing a whole living being with a brain and bones and all that is the most efficient possible way of producing this (and immune systems are irrelevant if you have good enough isolation). I do agree that at our current tech level it seems like synthetic meat won’t be competitive anytime soon. While vegan alternatives are delicious to many people, it’s not exactly the same (though wanting to eat animals for psychological reasons is definitely part of it). Though I do agree that these issues are uncertain!