For someone who thinks, based on media articles or some general intuition like Moore’s Law, that it’s inevitable that cultivated meat will become price-competitive, this might be a pretty large negative update. But for a scientist at a cultivated meat startup this probably isn’t much of an update at all.
I should probably read the report, but it isn’t clear from your comment or the report abstract if the difficulties are such that cultivated meat will likely never be price-competitive with cheap animal products at scale, or if it is still inevitable that this will happen but that it will likely be much later than most people thought. Which is more accurate? I’d imagine it will still happen eventually (even if this takes decades/centuries)?
I think this is an important distinction. Someone with longtermist leanings might argue that it seems more important that price-competitiveness at scale ever happens, than that it happens at some point in the nearish future.
Yeah I agree that’s a critical question. I don’t think it’s inevitable that cultivated meat will be price-competitive with cheap animal products at scale one day, but I also don’t think it’s impossible. So it’s a question of what probability to attach to that outcome and on what timeline. I feel very unsure on that.
I’d love to see more people making predictions on this and debating the likely solvability of specific challenges identified in the report. One place for making predictions is this Metaculus series which we commissioned (though note most predictions were placed before the report above was published and I don’t know how much technical knowledge they’re based on).
Would love to see an answer to this. The report is pessimistic, but it’s unclear if it’s never or 50 years. I hope Lewis will get back to this question!
I should probably read the report, but it isn’t clear from your comment or the report abstract if the difficulties are such that cultivated meat will likely never be price-competitive with cheap animal products at scale, or if it is still inevitable that this will happen but that it will likely be much later than most people thought. Which is more accurate? I’d imagine it will still happen eventually (even if this takes decades/centuries)?
I think this is an important distinction. Someone with longtermist leanings might argue that it seems more important that price-competitiveness at scale ever happens, than that it happens at some point in the nearish future.
Yeah I agree that’s a critical question. I don’t think it’s inevitable that cultivated meat will be price-competitive with cheap animal products at scale one day, but I also don’t think it’s impossible. So it’s a question of what probability to attach to that outcome and on what timeline. I feel very unsure on that.
I’d love to see more people making predictions on this and debating the likely solvability of specific challenges identified in the report. One place for making predictions is this Metaculus series which we commissioned (though note most predictions were placed before the report above was published and I don’t know how much technical knowledge they’re based on).
Would love to see an answer to this. The report is pessimistic, but it’s unclear if it’s never or 50 years. I hope Lewis will get back to this question!