Thanks for the engagement. I’m honored that you devote a section to your post just discussing our summary. Here are some rushed thoughts (Note that I’m speaking for myself and not Neil or Rethink Priorities, I think there’s a ~50% chance that Neil substantively disagrees with me on at least one important point here, and a >90% chance that someone on the RP team does):
The Altruist, who primarily cares about making sure cultured meat achieves a large market share rather than not, and secondarily wants it to happen sooner rather than later
This is not, strictly speaking, accurate. The Altruist cares that altruistic goals are met, which cultured meat having a “large market share” may or may not be in the path of. When referring to cultured meat within an EA context this usually but not always means reduced degree of animal suffering in factory farms[1]. But there may be other ways of achieving this:
plant-based meats
fungi-based meats
better tasting non-meat foods overall
people often eat (vegan) Oreos for non-moral reasons, Buddhists spread tofu in China as a meat replacement
??? other tech alternatives
reducing the numbers of animals that suffer in farms via other means (moral suasion, politics)
better realized welfare for animals in farms
better welfare standards of animals in farms
better welfare capacity of animals in farms
The question for altruists isn’t “cultured meat or not”, it’s (as usual) “is marginal investment in cultured meat the best use of resources to accomplish our altruistic goals”
Re: your theory of change, this sounds plausible (at least conditional upon cultured meat being the correct path forwards).
One thing I’m unsure of is whether it makes sense for altruistic resources on cultured meat to be spent now (instead of invested to be spent later). I wish I had more conceptual or empirical clarity about how much e.g. early solar cell investment was really in the causal path to having solar cells today (as opposed to e/g. a technological overhang from other advances making later development of solar cells a lot easier), and how much we think this can reasonably generalize into future technologies. I think figuring this out is important for not just cultured meat but other technological advances EAs might care about as well.
In particular, Humbird’s analysis presents a forceful case against the feasibility of cultured meat. However, in my opinion, his analysis presents only a moderate reason for worry for the VC, and a smaller reason for worry for The Altruist.
For the VC, cost parity is not a necessary criteria for generating substantial ROI (cf Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat).
Note that Humbird’s target price and market of $25/kg at 100kilotonnes/year (so a market of $2.5B/year) was indexed on the higher end of plant-based meats, not conventional meat.
As the authors note, all three TEAs have flaws in their methodology[...]
I don’t think this is a fair paraphrase of our analysis. I think we make clear that the magnitude of the errors in CE Delft seem larger, and they all point in the same direction (suggesting motivated reasoning).
[...]This is because there is no rock solid methodology for arguing against the ultimate feasibility of a transformative technology.
I will note that the current front page of the CE Delft report (archive) describes it thus: ”… explored various avenues for cutting costs when production takes place in full-scale plants, realized in 2030.
We conclude that substantial cost reductions that bring CM production costs close to the benchmark are feasible. This requires a combination of reductions that covers nearly all aspects of the business case.” [emphasis mine]
One might naively conclude from their report and the resulting publicity that the report was talking less about the ultimate feasibility and referring to a more specific and nearby date.
An alternate way of assessing the feasibility of cultured meat is to imagine a path of stepwise development from now to a world where there are enough milestones that tens of billions of dollars have been invested. At that level of investment, there are sufficient resources to break fundamental assumptions that would be in any TEA made today.
I think this is actually a pretty important crux. You take it as a given that those resources will be enough, but The Counter article that precipitated our summaries put it thus:
For cultured meat to move the needle on climate, a sequence of as-yet-unforeseen breakthroughs will still be necessary...It will be work worthy of many Nobel prizes—certainly for science, possibly for peace
I think it’s a pretty important crux here: in worlds where EA literally devote almost all our (present and future) non-longtermist resources into cultured meat R&D, which in the more optimistic scenarios may mean tens of billions of dollars and cajoling multiple Nobel Prize-level scientists, is this enough resources and technical know-how to get us to truly cost-competitive and widescale cultured meat in the next e.g. 20 years? (at least barring political and consumer acceptance concerns)
I think if you believe the path forwards is 0-3 Nobel Prizes worth of breakthroughs plus some moderately hard (say Tesla-level) engineering/logistical challenges away, this will imply a very different worldview and forecasts than from someone that thinks “work worthy of many Nobel prizes” is a non-hyperbolic summary of their current understanding of the situation.
[1] alternative reasons include climate change, feeding the poor.
Thanks Linch! Apologies for the things I misunderstood / misrepresented about your report. Any sloppiness was the result of being rushed. I hope it’s clear that I was trying to engage in good faith :).
I agree with your characterization of the Altruist’s goals. Indeed, I think one of the biggest reasons to be bearish on cultured is if you’re super bullish on plant-based!
Re my theory of change, one other area that we may take lessons from is AI. I’m hesitant to speak too much about that since folks here know way more about it than me, but if AGI ends up being possible, it seems like it would have been important that domain-specific AIs were highly economically useful at various levels of sophistication.
Re the crux you identified—I agree that imagining such scenarios is important to thinking about the possible outcomes of cultured meat. I’m not sure I understand your distinction in the last paragraph of your comment. However, a couple of related thoughts:
I don’t imagine it’s a good use of EA resources to devote tons of money directly to cultured meat R&D. Instead, it seems better to identify high leverage ways to increase funding, e.g. GFI’s work to hire lobbyists to get governments to invest huge sums and provide great incentives for research (like they have for solar).
It doesn’t seem particularly optimistic to think that there will be on the order of tens of billions of dollars of investment over the next 10-20 years (even potentially with minimal EA intervention). I’d have to think a bit more about the different scenarios, but there are lots of worlds where there are impressive milestones reached, lots of private funding, funding by incumbent food companies, governments, etc in which we’d see that kind of investment. Tesla alone has an R&D budget of around 1.5B / year.
Hi avacyn,
Thanks for the engagement. I’m honored that you devote a section to your post just discussing our summary. Here are some rushed thoughts (Note that I’m speaking for myself and not Neil or Rethink Priorities, I think there’s a ~50% chance that Neil substantively disagrees with me on at least one important point here, and a >90% chance that someone on the RP team does):
This is not, strictly speaking, accurate. The Altruist cares that altruistic goals are met, which cultured meat having a “large market share” may or may not be in the path of. When referring to cultured meat within an EA context this usually but not always means reduced degree of animal suffering in factory farms[1]. But there may be other ways of achieving this:
plant-based meats
fungi-based meats
better tasting non-meat foods overall
people often eat (vegan) Oreos for non-moral reasons, Buddhists spread tofu in China as a meat replacement
??? other tech alternatives
reducing the numbers of animals that suffer in farms via other means (moral suasion, politics)
better realized welfare for animals in farms
better welfare standards of animals in farms
better welfare capacity of animals in farms
The question for altruists isn’t “cultured meat or not”, it’s (as usual) “is marginal investment in cultured meat the best use of resources to accomplish our altruistic goals”
Re: your theory of change, this sounds plausible (at least conditional upon cultured meat being the correct path forwards).
One thing I’m unsure of is whether it makes sense for altruistic resources on cultured meat to be spent now (instead of invested to be spent later). I wish I had more conceptual or empirical clarity about how much e.g. early solar cell investment was really in the causal path to having solar cells today (as opposed to e/g. a technological overhang from other advances making later development of solar cells a lot easier), and how much we think this can reasonably generalize into future technologies. I think figuring this out is important for not just cultured meat but other technological advances EAs might care about as well.
Note that Humbird’s target price and market of $25/kg at 100kilotonnes/year (so a market of $2.5B/year) was indexed on the higher end of plant-based meats, not conventional meat.
I don’t think this is a fair paraphrase of our analysis. I think we make clear that the magnitude of the errors in CE Delft seem larger, and they all point in the same direction (suggesting motivated reasoning).
I will note that the current front page of the CE Delft report (archive) describes it thus: ”… explored various avenues for cutting costs when production takes place in full-scale plants, realized in 2030.
We conclude that substantial cost reductions that bring CM production costs close to the benchmark are feasible. This requires a combination of reductions that covers nearly all aspects of the business case.” [emphasis mine]
One might naively conclude from their report and the resulting publicity that the report was talking less about the ultimate feasibility and referring to a more specific and nearby date.
I think this is actually a pretty important crux. You take it as a given that those resources will be enough, but The Counter article that precipitated our summaries put it thus:
I think it’s a pretty important crux here: in worlds where EA literally devote almost all our (present and future) non-longtermist resources into cultured meat R&D, which in the more optimistic scenarios may mean tens of billions of dollars and cajoling multiple Nobel Prize-level scientists, is this enough resources and technical know-how to get us to truly cost-competitive and widescale cultured meat in the next e.g. 20 years? (at least barring political and consumer acceptance concerns)
I think if you believe the path forwards is 0-3 Nobel Prizes worth of breakthroughs plus some moderately hard (say Tesla-level) engineering/logistical challenges away, this will imply a very different worldview and forecasts than from someone that thinks “work worthy of many Nobel prizes” is a non-hyperbolic summary of their current understanding of the situation.
[1] alternative reasons include climate change, feeding the poor.
Protein from seaweed (which GFI is now interested in), methane consuming single cell protein, hydrogen consuming single cell protein, leaf protein concentrate, and maybe even electrically powered single cell protein, though it looks like they are better at producing vinegar than protein.
Thanks for helping to extend the list!
Thanks Linch! Apologies for the things I misunderstood / misrepresented about your report. Any sloppiness was the result of being rushed. I hope it’s clear that I was trying to engage in good faith :).
I agree with your characterization of the Altruist’s goals. Indeed, I think one of the biggest reasons to be bearish on cultured is if you’re super bullish on plant-based!
Re my theory of change, one other area that we may take lessons from is AI. I’m hesitant to speak too much about that since folks here know way more about it than me, but if AGI ends up being possible, it seems like it would have been important that domain-specific AIs were highly economically useful at various levels of sophistication.
Re the crux you identified—I agree that imagining such scenarios is important to thinking about the possible outcomes of cultured meat. I’m not sure I understand your distinction in the last paragraph of your comment. However, a couple of related thoughts:
I don’t imagine it’s a good use of EA resources to devote tons of money directly to cultured meat R&D. Instead, it seems better to identify high leverage ways to increase funding, e.g. GFI’s work to hire lobbyists to get governments to invest huge sums and provide great incentives for research (like they have for solar).
It doesn’t seem particularly optimistic to think that there will be on the order of tens of billions of dollars of investment over the next 10-20 years (even potentially with minimal EA intervention). I’d have to think a bit more about the different scenarios, but there are lots of worlds where there are impressive milestones reached, lots of private funding, funding by incumbent food companies, governments, etc in which we’d see that kind of investment. Tesla alone has an R&D budget of around 1.5B / year.