This seems to rest heavily on Rethink Priorities’ Welfare Estimates. While their expected value for the “welfare range” of chickens is 0.332 that of humans, their 90% confidence for that number spans 0.002 to 0.869, which is so wide that we can’t make much use of it.
Seems to be a tendency in EA to try to use expected values when just admitting “I have no idea” is more honest and truthful.
I mean to be fair to OP (edit: I meant original poster) they make their uncertainty really clear throughout and the conditionals it entails. I don’t think it’s fair to say they’re not being honest and truthful.
Some people think that animals such as chickens have essentially no moral significance compared to that of humans; others think that they should be considered comparably important, or at least 1-10% as important. If you accept the latter view, farm animal welfare looks like an extraordinarily outstanding cause, potentially to the point of dominating other options: billions of chickens are treated incredibly cruelly each year on factory farms, and we estimate that corporate campaigns can spare over 200 hens from cage confinement for each dollar spent. But if you accept the former view, this work is arguably a poor use of money.
However, after RP’s moral weight project, I do not think it is reasonable to assume (in expectation) that “chickens have essentially no moral significance compared to that of humans”. In general, OP’s decision-making around how much should be allocated to each worldview remains unclear to me.
This seems to rest heavily on Rethink Priorities’ Welfare Estimates. While their expected value for the “welfare range” of chickens is 0.332 that of humans, their 90% confidence for that number spans 0.002 to 0.869, which is so wide that we can’t make much use of it.
Note that:
According to my results, corporate campaigns for broiler welfare are 1.71 k times as effective as the lowest cost to save a life among GW’s top charities.
So, using RP’s 5th percentile welfare range instead of the median one, corporate campaigns for broiler welfare are still 10.3 (= 1.71*10^3*0.002/0.332) times as effective. However, there is also large uncertainty in how bad are the lives of broilers and human relative to their median welfare ranges. This means the true 5th percentile will tend to be lower than the 10.3 I just calculated. I guess the uncertainty stemming from the median welfare range is similar to that from the mean experience relative to the median welfare range, so I think there is less than 10 % chance that corporate campaings for broiler welfare are less effective than the lowest cost to save a life among GW’s top charities. I suppose RP will look into building on their moral weight project.
Seems to be a tendency in EA to try to use expected values when just admitting “I have no idea” is more honest and truthful.
I am also concerned about acting as if expect values are resilient, i.e. assuming they will not easily change in the future in response to new information. On the other hand, large uncertainty in the welfare range of chickens does not necessarily imply the median welfare range lacks resilience. My understanding is that RP’s research tried to integrate most of the available evidence, which means narrowing the interval of possible values may be difficult.
This seems to rest heavily on Rethink Priorities’ Welfare Estimates. While their expected value for the “welfare range” of chickens is 0.332 that of humans, their 90% confidence for that number spans 0.002 to 0.869, which is so wide that we can’t make much use of it.
Seems to be a tendency in EA to try to use expected values when just admitting “I have no idea” is more honest and truthful.
I mean to be fair to OP (edit: I meant original poster) they make their uncertainty really clear throughout and the conditionals it entails. I don’t think it’s fair to say they’re not being honest and truthful.
Hi zchuang,
I agree OP’s writings have high reasoning transparency (certainly much more than my posts). In the very 1st bullet of their post on worldview diversification, they write:
However, after RP’s moral weight project, I do not think it is reasonable to assume (in expectation) that “chickens have essentially no moral significance compared to that of humans”. In general, OP’s decision-making around how much should be allocated to each worldview remains unclear to me.
Sorry I meant OP as in original poster not OpenPhil. But nice response nonetheless!
I’d suggest editing your top-level post (with brackets, like this: [the original poster, originally wrote “OP” which was ambiguous])
Hi Henry,
Thanks for engaging!
Note that:
So, using RP’s 5th percentile welfare range instead of the median one, corporate campaigns for broiler welfare are still 10.3 (= 1.71*10^3*0.002/0.332) times as effective. However, there is also large uncertainty in how bad are the lives of broilers and human relative to their median welfare ranges. This means the true 5th percentile will tend to be lower than the 10.3 I just calculated. I guess the uncertainty stemming from the median welfare range is similar to that from the mean experience relative to the median welfare range, so I think there is less than 10 % chance that corporate campaings for broiler welfare are less effective than the lowest cost to save a life among GW’s top charities. I suppose RP will look into building on their moral weight project.
I am also concerned about acting as if expect values are resilient, i.e. assuming they will not easily change in the future in response to new information. On the other hand, large uncertainty in the welfare range of chickens does not necessarily imply the median welfare range lacks resilience. My understanding is that RP’s research tried to integrate most of the available evidence, which means narrowing the interval of possible values may be difficult.