Thanks for writing this. I enjoyed reading it and for myself I’m turning over in my head whether or not I think welfare tech is a bubble in the same way that leafleting and clean meat were. I recall the movement going all in on scaling up leafleting when the evidence didn’t support it yet. The predictions and promises made about when cultivated meat would hit stores and total market share again were overpromising on the evidence.
I guess from my point of view I feel like I haven’t seen the same claims being made about welfare tech. Perhaps you could argue that people are claiming success at a level that is not warranted by the evidence, given the complexity of these problems and the uncertainty we have about whether or not they are net positive. Is the claim here that some of these claims are premature and overstating the case or is the claim that some of these new venture studios or calls for new founders are overstating how promising or straightforward these interventions are? Or both? Either way it doesn’t seem like this is the same kind of bubble as leafleting or clean meat predictions.
Thanks for writing this. I enjoyed reading it and for myself I’m turning over in my head whether or not I think welfare tech is a bubble in the same way that leafleting and clean meat were. I recall the movement going all in on scaling up leafleting when the evidence didn’t support it yet. The predictions and promises made about when cultivated meat would hit stores and total market share again were overpromising on the evidence.
I guess from my point of view I feel like I haven’t seen the same claims being made about welfare tech. Perhaps you could argue that people are claiming success at a level that is not warranted by the evidence, given the complexity of these problems and the uncertainty we have about whether or not they are net positive. Is the claim here that some of these claims are premature and overstating the case or is the claim that some of these new venture studios or calls for new founders are overstating how promising or straightforward these interventions are? Or both? Either way it doesn’t seem like this is the same kind of bubble as leafleting or clean meat predictions.