Ah—I meant human, emulated or organic, since Rob referred to emulated humans in his comment. For less morally weighty digital minds, the same questions RE emulating animal minds apply, though the terms ought to be changed.
Also it seems worth noting that much the literature on longtermism, outside Foundation Research Institute, isn’t making claims explicitly about digital minds as the primary holders of future welfare, but just focuses on the future organic human populations (Greaves and MacAskill’s paper, for example), and similar sized populations to the present day human population at that.
Ah—I meant human, emulated or organic, since Rob referred to emulated humans in his comment. For less morally weighty digital minds, the same questions RE emulating animal minds apply, though the terms ought to be changed.
Also it seems worth noting that much the literature on longtermism, outside Foundation Research Institute, isn’t making claims explicitly about digital minds as the primary holders of future welfare, but just focuses on the future organic human populations (Greaves and MacAskill’s paper, for example), and similar sized populations to the present day human population at that.