Solving factory farming is different from other near term causes. It’s not like EA focused animal charities are saving animals 1 by 1 by buying them off a farm where it won’t make any future impact. It’s about making systematic changes that will impact not just the lives of animals today but the lives of animals for future generations to come. I fear that if AGI is developed while the practice of factory farming still exists there could be a high probability that it perpetuates the problem not solve it. We need to eliminate factory farming as soon as possible.
It’s not clear to me why we should expect (e.g.) corporate campaigns, alt-protein investments, or vegan outreach to have larger counterfactual flow-through effects than (e.g.) antimalarial bednets, deworming pills, or South Asian air quality improvements. Without a more detailed model, I can see it go either way.
As I read Bryan’s point, it’s that eg malaria is really unlikely to be a major problem of the future, but there are tailwinds to factory farming (though also headwinds) that could make it continue as a major problem. It is after all a much bigger phenomenon than a century ago, and malaria isn’t.
But fwiw, although other people have addressed future/longtermist implications of factory farming (section E), and I take some of those arguments seriously, by contrast in this post I was focused on arguments for working on current animal suffering, for its own sake.
Solving factory farming is different from other near term causes. It’s not like EA focused animal charities are saving animals 1 by 1 by buying them off a farm where it won’t make any future impact. It’s about making systematic changes that will impact not just the lives of animals today but the lives of animals for future generations to come. I fear that if AGI is developed while the practice of factory farming still exists there could be a high probability that it perpetuates the problem not solve it. We need to eliminate factory farming as soon as possible.
It’s not clear to me why we should expect (e.g.) corporate campaigns, alt-protein investments, or vegan outreach to have larger counterfactual flow-through effects than (e.g.) antimalarial bednets, deworming pills, or South Asian air quality improvements. Without a more detailed model, I can see it go either way.
As I read Bryan’s point, it’s that eg malaria is really unlikely to be a major problem of the future, but there are tailwinds to factory farming (though also headwinds) that could make it continue as a major problem. It is after all a much bigger phenomenon than a century ago, and malaria isn’t.
But fwiw, although other people have addressed future/longtermist implications of factory farming (section E), and I take some of those arguments seriously, by contrast in this post I was focused on arguments for working on current animal suffering, for its own sake.