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.
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.