Michael St Jules 🔸 comments on Ambitious Impact’s cost-effectiveness estimates suggest the best interventions in animal welfare are much more cost-effective than the best in global health and development?

[Michael St Jules 🔸]

Does this account for probability of sentience and welfare ranges/​moral weights?

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Good question, Michael! Strongly upvoted. Vicky commented the cost-effectiveness estimates in WPs/​$ account for the probability of sentience. However, I now realise welfare ranges conditional on sentience were apparently not considered. I will ask Vicky about this. “Cross-animal applicability” was one of the goals of the WPs’ system, and I assume cost-effectiveness estimates in WPs/​$ were directly compared with each other, so I believe the welfare ranges conditional on sentience should have somehow been taken into account.

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

However, I now realise welfare ranges conditional on sentience were apparently not considered. I will ask Vicky about this.

Vicky confirmed welfare ranges conditional on sentience were not considered. So AIM’s cost-effectiveness estimates in WPs/​$ are not comparable across species, and I guess ones with lower welfare ranges conditional on sentience were overrated in AIM’s analyses (namely, weighted factor models).

I have updated the post adjusting AIM’s estimates based on Rethink Priorities’ median welfare ranges. The conclusion qualitatively remains:

In particular, in terms of the 5th percentile, which is the stat I considered arguably best proxying AIM’s marginal cost-effectiveness in each area, animal welfare is 48.7 times as cost-effective as global health and development.