Hi Vasco. Firstly, it should be noted that the overall ratio used for the 2025 SADs was 1000x not 7x. The updated 2026 ratio based on more extensive research is 50x.
Secondly on “I do not see how one would be indifferent between these”. You might be surprised if it does not match your personal experience, but many people are indifferent between relatively extreme levels of pain, including people who have been through quite extreme pain. Just as an example this study on 37 women who have just gone through labour, roughly one third of them would prefer a 9⁄10 pain for 2 hours than a 1⁄10 pain for 18 hours!
Finally, I defend putting at least some weight on counter-intuitive results of academic research. I especially defend this in the case where you are analysing and pooling the results of many papers and expect some results to be bias upwards and some results to be bias downwards. The new SAD spreadsheet links to 15 different studies / pieces of evidence on this topic. Of those 15 some of which show counterintuitively low and some counterintuitively high relative preferences for different levels of pain. I think it is better to put weight on all of them based on the quality of the evidence they present not be (overly) guided by an intuitive sense of the results we want to find.
Firstly, it should be noted that the overall ratio used for the 2025 SADs was 1000x not 7x.
Right. There was a weight of 45 % on a ratio of 7.06, and of 55 % on one of 62.8 k (= 3.44*10^6/54.8), 8.90 k (= 62.8*10^3/7.06) times as much. My explanation for the large difference is that very little can be inferred about the intensity of excruciating pain, as defined by the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI), from the academic studies AIM analysed to derive the pain intensities linked to the lower ratio.
Just as an example this study on 37 women who have just gone through labour, roughly one third of them would prefer a 9⁄10 pain for 2 hours than a 1⁄10 pain for 18 hours!
The study is not relevant for assessing excruciating pain? Excruciating pain is “not normally tolerated even if only for a few seconds”. Here is the clarification of what this means from Cynthia Schuck, WFI’s scientific director.
By not tolerated we mean that Excruciating pain can’t be sustained for long (e.g., hours, as opposed to minutes) without neurological shutdown. It will tend to overrides an organism’s ability to function or respond coherently, with even powerful opioids providing minimal relief, or desperate attempts to escape pain even at the risk of death . Examples would include severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture.
I doubt the women in the study would be indifferent between 2 h of “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” and 18 h of a “1/10 pain”. I believe excruciating pain is way more intense than their “9/10 pain” assuming they are indifferent between 2 h of “9/10 pain” and 18 h of “1/10 pain”.
From the study, “In the questionnaire, the intensity of pain was evaluated using an NRS 0–10, with 0=no pain and 10=worst pain imaginable”. However, this does not imply the women’s “10/10 pain” was excruciating. I guess their “10/10 pain” was disabling as defined by WFI.
Finally, I defend putting at least some weight on counter-intuitive results of academic research. I especially defend this in the case where you are analysing and pooling the results of many papers and expect some results to be bias upwards and some results to be bias downwards. The new SAD spreadsheet links to 15 different studies / pieces of evidence on this topic. Of those 15 some of which show counterintuitively low and some counterintuitively high relative preferences for different levels of pain.
I think point estimates like AIM’s SADs derived from aggregating such different results have very little robustness. The takeaway for me is that we have basically no idea about which results to trust when they differ so much. I believe this calls for a more robust estimation method and input research, not for aggregating more widely different results, although I still expect large uncertainty will remain (just not so large).
@vicky_cox, has AIM has considered commissioning surveys asking random people, people who regularly experience disabling pain, and people who have experienced excruciating pain about how they trade-off WFI’s pain and pleasure categories. I believe Rethink Priorities’ (RP’s) surveys and data analysis team would be a good fit to run such surveys. @Vince Mak 🔸, has ACE considered commissioning such surveys?
I agree AIM 2025 SADS were below ideal robustness and as such I have spent much of the last few weeks doing additional research to improve the pain scaling estimates. If you have time and want to review this then let me know.
I would be interested in Rethink Priorities or others doing additional work on this topic.
AGREE ON THE LIMITS OF CONDENSING TO A SINGLE NUMBER
I have adapted the 2026 SAD model to give outputs at the four different pain levels, as well as a single aggregated number. This should help users of the model make their own informed decisions and not just focus on the one number.
I DISAGREE ON NOT USING THE RESEARCH WE HAVE
Where I disagree is where you say we basically have no idea how to compare different levels of pain, and your suggestion that we should not be doing so.
Every time we make a decision EG to focus on an issue of stocking densities rather than slaughter methods, we are ultimately deciding to focus on less extreme but longer lasting forms of pain. Being as explicit as we can about our numbers and our thinking helps us make those decisions better (as long as we don’t overly rely on a single number).
We do have some data and we should use it to inform our decisions and our numbers. This includes academic studies of people in pain, including those with severe conditions, and self-reports from people who experienced extreme pain.
DISAGREE ON NOT BELIEVING PEOPLE
Less important but: I also disagree on your suggestion not to trust the standard academic approach of asking about / people’s responses on “worse pain imaginable”. Maybe sometimes people overestimate how bad that is sometimes underestimate it. You seem to be claiming these women (or the whole public) are en mass systematically underestimating. That is a strong claim and not one I would put much weight on without good evidence.
Yes that are (often known) systematic over and underestimation effects. This can be addressed by asking similar questions in different ways that aim to elicit different biases, or by having a back and forth between questioner and respondent to seek consistency.
If research does not match our intuitions we need to be objective in judging the value of that research and not claim systematic bias without evidence.
The updated 2026 ratio based on more extensive research is 50x.
This implies 10 h of “awareness of Pain is likely to be present most of the time” (hurtful pain) is as bad as 12 min (= 10/50*60) of “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” (excruciating pain). In contrast, I think practically everyone would prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain under WFI’s definitions. Do you disagree?
I have adapted the 2026 SAD model to give outputs at the four different pain levels, as well as a single aggregated number. This should help users of the model make their own informed decisions and not just focus on the one number.
Great addition!
Where I disagree is where you say we basically have no idea how to compare different levels of pain, and your suggestion that we should not be doing so
I was not super clear. I said “The takeaway for me is that we have basically no idea about which pain intensities to use when they differ so much”. I meant “basically no idea about which results to trust when they differ so much”. I feel like I have a better sense about which pain intensities to use based on my own time trade-offs, and the behaviours of others than suggested by the difference of a factor of 8.90 k between the 2 sets of pain intensities aggregated by AIM in 2025.
Being as explicit as we can about our numbers and our thinking helps us make those decisions better (as long as we don’t overly rely on a single number).
I very much agree. It is just worth keeping in mind that improving the estimates is often more cost-effective than using them from the point of view of improving future decisions.
We do have some data and we should use it to inform our decisions and our numbers.
I agree with using all the available evidence in principle. However, I personally put so little weight on evidence suggesting the trade-off between hurtful and excruciating pain I mentioned above that I can neglect it in practice.
Less important but: I also disagree on your suggestion not to trust the standard academic approach of asking about / people’s responses on “worse pain imaginable”. Maybe sometimes people overestimate how bad that is sometimes underestimate it. You seem to be claiming these [37] women (or the whole public) are en mass systematically underestimating. That is a strong claim and not one I would put much weight on without good evidence.
I am not confident the women (or the whole public) are underestimating the “worst pain imaginable”. I said “I guess their “10/10 pain” was disabling as defined by WFI”, but I can see it being excruciating. At the same time, “I [still] doubt the women in the study would be indifferent between 2 h of “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” and 18 h of a “1/10 pain”.
I think practically everyone would prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain under WFI’s definitions. Do you disagree?
I disagree.
It looks like on average people would be indifferent between 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain. People are diverse and there would be very high variation and very strong views in both directions, but some people (such as a noticeable minority of women in the cited study) would prefer short sharp very painful fix over ongoing pain.
(One possible source of error here is I might have systematically miscalibrated the welfare footprint pain scale. I connected “hurtful” to 4.8 and “excruciating” to 10 on a 0 to 10 scale. It could be good to get estimates on this from others.)
Very interesting. You trust your research more than I expected. Would you be willing to bet on something related to our disagreement? I would. Here is a proposal:
If more than 2⁄3 of people prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain, you give me 10 k$.
Otherwise, I give you 10 k$.
@David_Moss, do you have a sense of how much RP would need to run a survey about WFI’s pain intensities which could shed light on the above? If just a few k$, it may make sense for me and weeatquince to fund it considering the expected value of the bet alone.
I am also open to less rigorous resolution criteria. For example, sharing a survey vetted by WFI on the EA Forum asking about whether people prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain.
I agree this is an important and interesting topic. I will look into the prior studies to assess what I think would be needed to shed light on the above (e.g. required sample size, required measures) and get back to you.
In principle up for some sort of cheap bet. However I have mostly stopped working on this now and handed back to Vicky for review and implementation so have very very limited time to and headspace for more work, or defining a bet or, reviewing data collection, etc. Actually mostly trying not to think about this as much as possible for the next 2 months so if there was a bet it would be saying sure I bet $100 and I trust you to work out a fair answer without needing me and let me know in 2 months.
If you did want to work with Rethink to test this:
The aim should be to test the ratio 50:1 not the specific length of time (12 min). If this research was being done well there could be a case for asking about different lengths of time and seeing how that varies responses (FWIW based on Welfare Footprint the periods of times most animals spend in excruciating pain is 10-15 seconds during slaughter so that would be the most useful anchor if a time is needed).
I expect how you ask the question makes all the difference, I think phrased one way I would easily win and another I would easily loose. Similarly words like “torture” have more weight than words like “9.5 out of 10 on the pain scale”. I read one paper where they did an iterative approach with face to face interviews to get into what people think rather than trust immediate survey responses and that showed that in the face to face interviews people were more pain averse than in a quick survey but more so at all levels of pain (if anything the ratio between mild and sever was less steep). Here is a fun exercise I wrote for myself.
Actually mostly trying not to think about this as much as possible for the next 2 months so if there was a bet it would be saying sure I bet $100 and I trust you to work out a fair answer without needing me and let me know in 2 months.
I see. 100 $ does not feel enough to set up a bet. @vicky_cox and @Vince Mak 🔸, you are welcome to reach out to me if you know about people at AIM, ACE, or elsewhere using SADs who may be interested in a similar bet, and willing to bet at least 300 $.
weeatquince, best wishes for your future projects.
Similarly words like “torture” have more weight than words like “9.5 out of 10 on the pain scale”.
I think surveys assessing WFI’s pain intensities should rely on their definitions, and give concrete examples of pain, like Cynthia’s “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” for the case of excruciating pain. I would say asking people to compare “2/10 pain” with “9/10 pain” tells us very little about WFI’s pain intensities unless there is separate evidence about what people are imagining for each number on the that scale, and that results are comparable across people. Having WFI’s definitions, and concrete examples would decrease ambiguity a lot.
Hi Vasco. Firstly, it should be noted that the overall ratio used for the 2025 SADs was 1000x not 7x. The updated 2026 ratio based on more extensive research is 50x.
Secondly on “I do not see how one would be indifferent between these”. You might be surprised if it does not match your personal experience, but many people are indifferent between relatively extreme levels of pain, including people who have been through quite extreme pain. Just as an example this study on 37 women who have just gone through labour, roughly one third of them would prefer a 9⁄10 pain for 2 hours than a 1⁄10 pain for 18 hours!
Finally, I defend putting at least some weight on counter-intuitive results of academic research. I especially defend this in the case where you are analysing and pooling the results of many papers and expect some results to be bias upwards and some results to be bias downwards. The new SAD spreadsheet links to 15 different studies / pieces of evidence on this topic. Of those 15 some of which show counterintuitively low and some counterintuitively high relative preferences for different levels of pain. I think it is better to put weight on all of them based on the quality of the evidence they present not be (overly) guided by an intuitive sense of the results we want to find.
Thanks for the reply.
Right. There was a weight of 45 % on a ratio of 7.06, and of 55 % on one of 62.8 k (= 3.44*10^6/54.8), 8.90 k (= 62.8*10^3/7.06) times as much. My explanation for the large difference is that very little can be inferred about the intensity of excruciating pain, as defined by the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI), from the academic studies AIM analysed to derive the pain intensities linked to the lower ratio.
The study is not relevant for assessing excruciating pain? Excruciating pain is “not normally tolerated even if only for a few seconds”. Here is the clarification of what this means from Cynthia Schuck, WFI’s scientific director.
I doubt the women in the study would be indifferent between 2 h of “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” and 18 h of a “1/10 pain”. I believe excruciating pain is way more intense than their “9/10 pain” assuming they are indifferent between 2 h of “9/10 pain” and 18 h of “1/10 pain”.
From the study, “In the questionnaire, the intensity of pain was evaluated using an NRS 0–10, with 0=no pain and 10=worst pain imaginable”. However, this does not imply the women’s “10/10 pain” was excruciating. I guess their “10/10 pain” was disabling as defined by WFI.
I think point estimates like AIM’s SADs derived from aggregating such different results have very little robustness. The takeaway for me is that we have basically no idea about which results to trust when they differ so much. I believe this calls for a more robust estimation method and input research, not for aggregating more widely different results, although I still expect large uncertainty will remain (just not so large).
@vicky_cox, has AIM has considered commissioning surveys asking random people, people who regularly experience disabling pain, and people who have experienced excruciating pain about how they trade-off WFI’s pain and pleasure categories. I believe Rethink Priorities’ (RP’s) surveys and data analysis team would be a good fit to run such surveys. @Vince Mak 🔸, has ACE considered commissioning such surveys?
Thank you Vasco
AGREE ON THERE BEING SOME VALUE FOR MORE RESEARCH
I agree AIM 2025 SADS were below ideal robustness and as such I have spent much of the last few weeks doing additional research to improve the pain scaling estimates. If you have time and want to review this then let me know.
I would be interested in Rethink Priorities or others doing additional work on this topic.
AGREE ON THE LIMITS OF CONDENSING TO A SINGLE NUMBER
I have adapted the 2026 SAD model to give outputs at the four different pain levels, as well as a single aggregated number. This should help users of the model make their own informed decisions and not just focus on the one number.
I DISAGREE ON NOT USING THE RESEARCH WE HAVE
Where I disagree is where you say we basically have no idea how to compare different levels of pain, and your suggestion that we should not be doing so.
Every time we make a decision EG to focus on an issue of stocking densities rather than slaughter methods, we are ultimately deciding to focus on less extreme but longer lasting forms of pain. Being as explicit as we can about our numbers and our thinking helps us make those decisions better (as long as we don’t overly rely on a single number).
We do have some data and we should use it to inform our decisions and our numbers. This includes academic studies of people in pain, including those with severe conditions, and self-reports from people who experienced extreme pain.
DISAGREE ON NOT BELIEVING PEOPLE
Less important but: I also disagree on your suggestion not to trust the standard academic approach of asking about / people’s responses on “worse pain imaginable”. Maybe sometimes people overestimate how bad that is sometimes underestimate it. You seem to be claiming these women (or the whole public) are en mass systematically underestimating. That is a strong claim and not one I would put much weight on without good evidence.
Yes that are (often known) systematic over and underestimation effects. This can be addressed by asking similar questions in different ways that aim to elicit different biases, or by having a back and forth between questioner and respondent to seek consistency.
If research does not match our intuitions we need to be objective in judging the value of that research and not claim systematic bias without evidence.
This implies 10 h of “awareness of Pain is likely to be present most of the time” (hurtful pain) is as bad as 12 min (= 10/50*60) of “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” (excruciating pain). In contrast, I think practically everyone would prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain under WFI’s definitions. Do you disagree?
Great addition!
I was not super clear. I said “The takeaway for me is that we have basically no idea about which pain intensities to use when they differ so much”. I meant “basically no idea about which results to trust when they differ so much”. I feel like I have a better sense about which pain intensities to use based on my own time trade-offs, and the behaviours of others than suggested by the difference of a factor of 8.90 k between the 2 sets of pain intensities aggregated by AIM in 2025.
I very much agree. It is just worth keeping in mind that improving the estimates is often more cost-effective than using them from the point of view of improving future decisions.
I agree with using all the available evidence in principle. However, I personally put so little weight on evidence suggesting the trade-off between hurtful and excruciating pain I mentioned above that I can neglect it in practice.
I am not confident the women (or the whole public) are underestimating the “worst pain imaginable”. I said “I guess their “10/10 pain” was disabling as defined by WFI”, but I can see it being excruciating. At the same time, “I [still] doubt the women in the study would be indifferent between 2 h of “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” and 18 h of a “1/10 pain”.
I disagree.
It looks like on average people would be indifferent between 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain. People are diverse and there would be very high variation and very strong views in both directions, but some people (such as a noticeable minority of women in the cited study) would prefer short sharp very painful fix over ongoing pain.
(One possible source of error here is I might have systematically miscalibrated the welfare footprint pain scale. I connected “hurtful” to 4.8 and “excruciating” to 10 on a 0 to 10 scale. It could be good to get estimates on this from others.)
Very interesting. You trust your research more than I expected. Would you be willing to bet on something related to our disagreement? I would. Here is a proposal:
If more than 2⁄3 of people prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain, you give me 10 k$.
Otherwise, I give you 10 k$.
@David_Moss, do you have a sense of how much RP would need to run a survey about WFI’s pain intensities which could shed light on the above? If just a few k$, it may make sense for me and weeatquince to fund it considering the expected value of the bet alone.
I am also open to less rigorous resolution criteria. For example, sharing a survey vetted by WFI on the EA Forum asking about whether people prefer 10 h of hurtful pain over 12 min of excruciating pain.
Thank you Vasco.
I agree this is an important and interesting topic. I will look into the prior studies to assess what I think would be needed to shed light on the above (e.g. required sample size, required measures) and get back to you.
In principle up for some sort of cheap bet. However I have mostly stopped working on this now and handed back to Vicky for review and implementation so have very very limited time to and headspace for more work, or defining a bet or, reviewing data collection, etc. Actually mostly trying not to think about this as much as possible for the next 2 months so if there was a bet it would be saying sure I bet $100 and I trust you to work out a fair answer without needing me and let me know in 2 months.
If you did want to work with Rethink to test this:
The aim should be to test the ratio 50:1 not the specific length of time (12 min). If this research was being done well there could be a case for asking about different lengths of time and seeing how that varies responses (FWIW based on Welfare Footprint the periods of times most animals spend in excruciating pain is 10-15 seconds during slaughter so that would be the most useful anchor if a time is needed).
I expect how you ask the question makes all the difference, I think phrased one way I would easily win and another I would easily loose. Similarly words like “torture” have more weight than words like “9.5 out of 10 on the pain scale”. I read one paper where they did an iterative approach with face to face interviews to get into what people think rather than trust immediate survey responses and that showed that in the face to face interviews people were more pain averse than in a quick survey but more so at all levels of pain (if anything the ratio between mild and sever was less steep). Here is a fun exercise I wrote for myself.
I see. 100 $ does not feel enough to set up a bet. @vicky_cox and @Vince Mak 🔸, you are welcome to reach out to me if you know about people at AIM, ACE, or elsewhere using SADs who may be interested in a similar bet, and willing to bet at least 300 $.
weeatquince, best wishes for your future projects.
I think surveys assessing WFI’s pain intensities should rely on their definitions, and give concrete examples of pain, like Cynthia’s “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture” for the case of excruciating pain. I would say asking people to compare “2/10 pain” with “9/10 pain” tells us very little about WFI’s pain intensities unless there is separate evidence about what people are imagining for each number on the that scale, and that results are comparable across people. Having WFI’s definitions, and concrete examples would decrease ambiguity a lot.