The use of expected value doesn’t seem useful here. Your confidence intervals are huge (95% confidence interval for pig suffering capacity relative to humans is between 0.005 to 1.031). Because the implications are so different across that spectrum (varying from basically “make the cages even smaller, who cares” at 0.005 to “I will push my nan down the stairs to save a pig” at 1.031) it really doesn’t feel like I can draw any conclusions from this.
Fair enough, Henry. We have limited faith in the models too. But as we said:
The numbers are placeholders.
Our actual views are summarized in the key takeaways and again toward the end (e.g., within an order of magnitude of humans for vertebrates--0.1 or above—which certainly does make a practical difference).
This work builds on everything else we’ve done and is not, all on its own,the complete case for relatively animal-friendly welfare range estimates.
The 1.031 comes from a model called the “Undiluted Experiences” model, which suggests that animals with lower cognitive abilities have greater welfare ranges because they are not as able to rationalize their feelings (eg. pets being anxious when you’re packing for a trip). A somewhat different model would be the “Higher-Lower Pleasures” model that is built on the idea that higher cognitive capacities means you can experience more welfare (akin to the JS Mill idea of higher-order pleasures). Under this model, we estimate that the range for pigs is 0.23 to 0.49--which is quite significant given how this model could be seen as having a pro-human bias!
In sum, the welfare ranges presented above reflect our high degree of uncertainty surrounding how to think about measuring welfare. As such, we invite you to take a closer look at each model (you’ll find most of them converge on the overall conclusion that vertebrates are within an order of magnitude of humans in terms of their welfare ranges).
The use of expected value doesn’t seem useful here. Your confidence intervals are huge (95% confidence interval for pig suffering capacity relative to humans is between 0.005 to 1.031). Because the implications are so different across that spectrum (varying from basically “make the cages even smaller, who cares” at 0.005 to “I will push my nan down the stairs to save a pig” at 1.031) it really doesn’t feel like I can draw any conclusions from this.
Fair enough, Henry. We have limited faith in the models too. But as we said:
The numbers are placeholders.
Our actual views are summarized in the key takeaways and again toward the end (e.g., within an order of magnitude of humans for vertebrates--0.1 or above—which certainly does make a practical difference).
This work builds on everything else we’ve done and is not, all on its own, the complete case for relatively animal-friendly welfare range estimates.
To follow up on Bob’s point, the ranges presented here are from a mixture model which combines the results from several models individually. You can see the results for each model here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SpbrcfmBoC50PTxlizF5HzBIq4p-17m3JduYXZCH2Og/edit?usp=sharing
For example, the 0.005 arises because we are including the neuron count model of welfare ranges in our overall estimates. If you don’t include this model (as there are good reasons not to, see https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mfq7KxQRvkeLnJvoB/why-neuron-counts-shouldn-t-be-used-as-proxies-for-moral) then the 5th percentile welfare range for pigs of all models combined is 0.20.
The 1.031 comes from a model called the “Undiluted Experiences” model, which suggests that animals with lower cognitive abilities have greater welfare ranges because they are not as able to rationalize their feelings (eg. pets being anxious when you’re packing for a trip). A somewhat different model would be the “Higher-Lower Pleasures” model that is built on the idea that higher cognitive capacities means you can experience more welfare (akin to the JS Mill idea of higher-order pleasures). Under this model, we estimate that the range for pigs is 0.23 to 0.49--which is quite significant given how this model could be seen as having a pro-human bias!
In sum, the welfare ranges presented above reflect our high degree of uncertainty surrounding how to think about measuring welfare. As such, we invite you to take a closer look at each model (you’ll find most of them converge on the overall conclusion that vertebrates are within an order of magnitude of humans in terms of their welfare ranges).