It is not a bias, at least not as the term is used by leading longtermists. Toby Ord explains it clearly in The Precipice (pp. 38–39):
my focus on humanity in the definitions is not supposed to exclude considerations of the value of the environment, other animals, successors to Homo sapiens, or creatures elsewhere in the cosmos. It is not that I think only humans count. Instead, it is that humans are the only beings we know of that are responsive to moral reasons and moral argument—the beings who can examine the world and decide to do what is best. If we fail, that upward force, that capacity to push toward what is best or what is just, will vanish from the world.
Our potential is a matter of what humanity can achieve through the combined actions of each and every human. The value of our actions will stem in part from what we do to and for humans, but it will depend on the effects of our actions on non-humans too. If we somehow give rise to new kinds of moral agents in the future, the term “humanity” in my definition should be taken to include them.
I understand that Ord, and MacAskill too, have given similar explanations, and for multiple times among each of them. But I disagree that the terminology is not biased—It still leads a lot of readers/listeners to focus on the future of humans if they haven’t seen/heard these caveats, or maybe even if they have read/heard about it.
I don’t think the fact that among organisms only humans can help other sentient beings justifies almost always using languages like “future of humanity”, “future people”, etc. For example, “future people matter morally just as much as people alive today”. Whether this sentence should be said with “future people” or “future sentient beings” shouldn’t have anything to do whether humans/people will be the only beings who can help other sentient beings. It just looks like a strategic move to reduce the weirdness of longtermism, or avoiding fighting two philosophical battles (which are probably sound reasons, but I also worry that this practice locks in humancentric/speciesist values) So yes, until AGI comes only humans can help other sentient beings but the future that matters should still be a “future of sentient beings”.
And I am not convinced that the terminology didn’t serve speciesism/humancentrism in the community. As a matter of fact, some of prominent longtermists, when they try to evaluate the value of the future, they focused on how many future humans there could be and what could happen to them. Holden Karnofsky and some others took it further and discussed digital people. MacAskill wrote about the number of nonhuman animals in the past and present in WWOTF, but didn’t discuss how many of them there will be and what might happen to them.
In this context, I think there are actually two separate ways in which terminology can inadvertently bias our thinking:
Talk about “future people” may be interpreted as referring to humans or beings with higher cognitive capacities, rather than to sentient beings or beings whose lives can go better or worse. Some alternative terms we could use to reduce bias here are “future sentients”, “future patients”, “future sentient beings” and “future moral patients”.
Talk about “human potential” or “humanity’s potential” may be interpreted as referring to the value humans can potentially experience, rather than to the value humans can potentially create. I’m not sure there are adequate alternatives here. One could perhaps talk about the “potential of human agency”, though that doesn’t sound very natural.
It is not a bias, at least not as the term is used by leading longtermists. Toby Ord explains it clearly in The Precipice (pp. 38–39):
I understand that Ord, and MacAskill too, have given similar explanations, and for multiple times among each of them. But I disagree that the terminology is not biased—It still leads a lot of readers/listeners to focus on the future of humans if they haven’t seen/heard these caveats, or maybe even if they have read/heard about it.
I don’t think the fact that among organisms only humans can help other sentient beings justifies almost always using languages like “future of humanity”, “future people”, etc. For example, “future people matter morally just as much as people alive today”. Whether this sentence should be said with “future people” or “future sentient beings” shouldn’t have anything to do whether humans/people will be the only beings who can help other sentient beings. It just looks like a strategic move to reduce the weirdness of longtermism, or avoiding fighting two philosophical battles (which are probably sound reasons, but I also worry that this practice locks in humancentric/speciesist values) So yes, until AGI comes only humans can help other sentient beings but the future that matters should still be a “future of sentient beings”.
And I am not convinced that the terminology didn’t serve speciesism/humancentrism in the community. As a matter of fact, some of prominent longtermists, when they try to evaluate the value of the future, they focused on how many future humans there could be and what could happen to them. Holden Karnofsky and some others took it further and discussed digital people. MacAskill wrote about the number of nonhuman animals in the past and present in WWOTF, but didn’t discuss how many of them there will be and what might happen to them.
Fair enough.
In this context, I think there are actually two separate ways in which terminology can inadvertently bias our thinking:
Talk about “future people” may be interpreted as referring to humans or beings with higher cognitive capacities, rather than to sentient beings or beings whose lives can go better or worse. Some alternative terms we could use to reduce bias here are “future sentients”, “future patients”, “future sentient beings” and “future moral patients”.
Talk about “human potential” or “humanity’s potential” may be interpreted as referring to the value humans can potentially experience, rather than to the value humans can potentially create. I’m not sure there are adequate alternatives here. One could perhaps talk about the “potential of human agency”, though that doesn’t sound very natural.