Thanks for writing this; your resource guide is especially helpful!
I agree that we should be thinking about opportunities/harms for animals from current/near-term AI (e.g. machine vision to manage human-wildlife interactions) and from AGI/superintelligence. I’m joining the Slack channel :)
A minor quibble: I agree cultural factors might hold plant-based alternatives back even after reaching taste, texture and price parity, but I am not convinced we currently have alternatives at parity. This Metaculus question resolved ‘annulled’ and while this paper (which found no significant diff in ranking between a plant-based burger and a beef burger) is promising, it would be great to see a replication, more testing for taste and texture specifically, and widespread sales at the same price/cheaper than meat burgers – as well as all those bars cleared again by other plant-based alternatives. I look forward to seeing how AI helps alternative proteins develop.
I had never seen the RP piece you linked. I am posting it all over the slack and adding it to the resource guide!!
With regards to the taste/texture parity of plant-based meats, I don’t take a firm stance on it. I remember going to a vegan asian fusion restaurant 20 years ago and being blown away by how accurate I thought the taste/texture was. Sure it is somewhat different, but I would argue in some cases it is actually better. Many people have meat that is too dry, fatty, or has pieces of cartilage in it. And yet, they keep purchasing animal products because they think of those bad cases as anomalies. Whereas with the plant-based alternatives, people are much more picky. One bad experience can label all of the products as bad. I think that is the result of culture. People want to find reasons to keep doing what the in-group is doing. Being vegan is kind of hard in many mainstream social contexts.
Thanks for writing this; your resource guide is especially helpful!
I agree that we should be thinking about opportunities/harms for animals from current/near-term AI (e.g. machine vision to manage human-wildlife interactions) and from AGI/superintelligence. I’m joining the Slack channel :)
A minor quibble: I agree cultural factors might hold plant-based alternatives back even after reaching taste, texture and price parity, but I am not convinced we currently have alternatives at parity. This Metaculus question resolved ‘annulled’ and while this paper (which found no significant diff in ranking between a plant-based burger and a beef burger) is promising, it would be great to see a replication, more testing for taste and texture specifically, and widespread sales at the same price/cheaper than meat burgers – as well as all those bars cleared again by other plant-based alternatives. I look forward to seeing how AI helps alternative proteins develop.
(in a personal capacity)
Sent you a dm in the slack! :)
I had never seen the RP piece you linked. I am posting it all over the slack and adding it to the resource guide!!
With regards to the taste/texture parity of plant-based meats, I don’t take a firm stance on it. I remember going to a vegan asian fusion restaurant 20 years ago and being blown away by how accurate I thought the taste/texture was. Sure it is somewhat different, but I would argue in some cases it is actually better. Many people have meat that is too dry, fatty, or has pieces of cartilage in it. And yet, they keep purchasing animal products because they think of those bad cases as anomalies. Whereas with the plant-based alternatives, people are much more picky. One bad experience can label all of the products as bad. I think that is the result of culture. People want to find reasons to keep doing what the in-group is doing. Being vegan is kind of hard in many mainstream social contexts.