An intersection between animal welfare and AI
From some uncited utilitarian calculations, a meat eater’s positive emotional utility is dwarfed by how much suffering they cause (maybe around 10x). This means that the world is negative utility at the present. If AGI comes along, things might change. Humanity might go extinct, we might convert to fully lab-grown meat, or we might fulfill the s-risk of factory farm lock-in. My own intuition used to tell me that AI would end factory farming but less so nowadays.
I expect that if we achieve utopia and still dont include animals and instead factory farm them still, this world would still be negative utility. I think this world is more possible that people think because 99% of the world eats meat (and the majority is from factory farms). Veganism and animal advocacy may not significantly influence an AGI decision maker. Furthermore, human values are so inconsistent that I don’t believe an AGI can be expected to derive animal rights as a given. I also do not believe that switching to lab-grown meat is a given. Farmers will fight to the death to prevent it and it is already banned in two states for being an affront to god’s creation. Let it be known that christianity is also a much bigger movement than the animal rights movement.
Given this information, I believe that going vegan and donating and advocating for animal farming conditions is time sensitive. Whatever values we advocate for today could affect whatever lock in state we achieve through an AI decision maker.
I appreciate your thoughts. This is an idea I have only recently explored.
Hey if you want to learn more about the intersection of AI and animal welfare, I recommend you checking out the website https://www.aiforanimals.org/ and subscribing to the newsletter.