Alistair Stewart

Karma: 91

Trying to make transformative AI go less badly for sentient beings, regardless of species and substrate

Interested in:

Sentience- & suffering-focused ethics; sentientism; painism; s-risks
Animal ethics & abolitionism
AI safety & governance
Activism, direct action & social change

Bio:

From London
BA in linguistics at the University of Cambridge
Almost five years in the British Army as an officer
MSc in global governance and ethics at University College London
One year working full time in environmental campaigning and animal rights activism at Plant-Based Universities / Animal Rising
Now pivoting to the (future) impact of AI on biologically and artifically sentient beings
Currently lead organiser of the AI, Animals, & Digital Minds conference in London in June 2025

Alistair Stewart Mar 28, 2025, 12:21 AM
2 points
2 ∶ 0
on: How should we adapt animal advocacy to near-term AGI?
Great piece Max! I feel very similarly.

Alistair Stewart Mar 26, 2025, 11:43 PM
4 points
2 ∶ 0
on: AI Moral Alignment: The Most Important Goal of Our Generation
Thanks for posting this Ronen – galvanising for me!

Alistair Stewart Mar 19, 2025, 11:22 PM
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Greg_Colbourn ⏸️ ’s comment on: Discussion Thread: Existential Choices Debate Week
- I support PauseAI much more because I want to reduce the future probability and prevalence of intense suffering (including but not exclusively s-risk) caused by powerful AI, and much less because I want to reduce the risk of human extinction from powerful AI
- However, couching demands for an AGI moratorium in terms of “reducing x-risk” rather than “reducing suffering” seems
  - More robust to the kind of backfire risk that suffering-focused people at e.g. CLR are worried about
  - More effective in communicating catastrophic AI risk to the public

Alistair Stewart Mar 17, 2025, 10:36 PM
1 point
1 ∶ 1
on: Discussion Thread: Existential Choices Debate Week
Making people happy is valuable; making happy people is probably not valuable. There is an asymmetry between suffering and happiness because it is more morally important to mitigate suffering than to create happiness.

Alistair Stewart Mar 7, 2025, 1:32 AM
17 points
7 ∶ 0
in reply to: Alex (Αλέξανδρος)’s comment on: Yes, Shrimp Matter
To shrimps and other sentient non-humans, we are a misaligned superintelligence

Alistair Stewart Feb 7, 2025, 1:36 AM
5 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Alex (Αλέξανδρος)’s comment on: Wild Animal Suffering Is The Worst Thing In The World
Durrell added—I wish all those protesting to animals living in zoos and claiming animals lead far happier lives in the wild—I wish they all saw this!
I agree we shouldn’t assume that animals lead far happier lives in the wild; but I don’t think that means we should support zoos (which unlike sanctuaries exist for the benefit of humans rather than the benefit of the animals, and typically rely on breeding animals).

Alistair Stewart Feb 5, 2025, 6:59 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
To ensure future AIs can satisfy their own preferences, and thereby have a high level of well-being
This implies preferences matter when they cause well-being (positively-valenced sentience).
I subscribe to an eliminativist theory of consciousness, under which there is no “real” boundary distinguishing entities with sentience vs. entities without sentience. Instead, there are simply functional and behavioral cognitive traits, like reflectivity, language proficiency, self-awareness, reasoning ability, and so on.
I am closer to a pure preference utilitarian than a hedonistic utilitarian. As a consequence, I care more about AI preferences than AI sentience per se. In a behavioral sense, AI agents could have strong revealed preferences even if they lack phenomenal consciousness.
This implies that what matters is revealed preferences (irrespective of well-being/sentience/phenomenal consciousness).
In other words, corporations don’t really possess intrinsic preferences; their actions are ultimately determined by the preferences of the people who own and operate them.
...
These intrinsic preferences are significant in a moral sense because they belong to a being whose experiences and desires warrant ethical consideration.
This implies that what matters is intrinsic preferences as opposed to revealed preferences.
These intrinsic preferences are significant in a moral sense because they belong to a being whose experiences and desires warrant ethical consideration.
This (I think) is a circular argument.
I don’t have a hard rule for which preferences are ethically important, but I think a key idea is whether the preference arises from a complex mind with the ability to evaluate the state of the world.
This implies cognitive complexity and intelligence is what matters. But one probably could describe a corporation (or a military intelligence battalion) in these terms, and one probably couldn’t describe newborn humans in these terms.
If it’s coherent to talk about a particular mind “wanting” something, then I think it matters from an ethical point of view.
I think we’re back to square 1, because what does “wanting something” mean? If you mean “having preferences for something”, which preferences (revealed, intrinsic, meaningful)?
My view is that sentience (the capacity to have negatively- and positively-valenced experiences) is necessary and sufficient for having morally relevant/meaningful preferences, and maybe that’s all that matters morally in the world.

Alistair Stewart Feb 5, 2025, 4:23 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
To be clear, which preferences do you think are morally relevant/meaningful? I’m not seeing a consistent thread through these statements.
To ensure future AIs can satisfy their own preferences, and thereby have a high level of well-being
...
I subscribe to an eliminativist theory of consciousness, under which there is no “real” boundary distinguishing entities with sentience vs. entities without sentience. Instead, there are simply functional and behavioral cognitive traits, like reflectivity, language proficiency, self-awareness, reasoning ability, and so on.
I am closer to a pure preference utilitarian than a hedonistic utilitarian. As a consequence, I care more about AI preferences than AI sentience per se. In a behavioral sense, AI agents could have strong revealed preferences even if they lack phenomenal consciousness.
...
In other words, corporations don’t really possess intrinsic preferences; their actions are ultimately determined by the preferences of the people who own and operate them.
...
These intrinsic preferences are significant in a moral sense because they belong to a being whose experiences and desires warrant ethical consideration.

Alistair Stewart Feb 5, 2025, 2:26 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
In other words, from a moral standpoint, what matters are the preferences of the individual humans involved in the corporation, not the revealed preferences of the corporation itself as a separate entity.
It’s not obvious to me how this perspective (which assigns weight to the intrinsic preferences of individuals) is compatible with what you wrote in an earlier comment, downplaying the separateness of individuals and emphasising revealed preferences over phenomenal consciousness (which sounds similar to having intrinsic preferences?):
1. I subscribe to an eliminativist theory of consciousness, under which there is no “real” boundary distinguishing entities with sentience vs. entities without sentience. Instead, there are simply functional and behavioral cognitive traits, like reflectivity, language proficiency, self-awareness, reasoning ability, and so on.
2. I am closer to a pure preference utilitarian than a hedonistic utilitarian. As a consequence, I care more about AI preferences than AI sentience per se. In a behavioral sense, AI agents could have strong revealed preferences even if they lack phenomenal consciousness.

Alistair Stewart Feb 5, 2025, 1:42 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
In other words, corporations don’t really possess intrinsic preferences; their actions are ultimately determined by the preferences of the people who own and operate them.
...
From my preference utilitarian point of view, what matters is something more like meaningful preferences. Animals can have meaningful preferences, as can small children, even if they do not exhibit the type of complex agency that human adults do.
What’s the difference between “revealed”, “intrinsic” and “meaningful” preferences? The latter two seem substantially diffferent from the first.
Animals are unable to communicate with us in a way that allows for negotiation, trade, legal agreements, or meaningful participation in social institutions. Because of this, they cannot make credible commitments, integrate into our legal system, or assert their own interests. This lack of communication largely explains why humans collectively treat animals the way we do—exploiting them without serious consideration for their preferences.
I’m sceptical that animal exploitation is largely explained by a lack of communication. Humans have enslaved other humans with whom they could communicate and enter into agreements (North American slavery); humans have afforded rights/protection/care to humans with whom they can’t communicate and enter into agreements (newborn infants, cognitively impaired adults); and I’d be surprised if solving interspecies communication gets us most of the way to the abolition of animal exploitation, though it’s highly likely to help.
I think animal exploitation is better explained by a) our perception of a benefit (“it helps us”) and b) our collective superior intelligence/power (“we can”), and it’s underpinned by c) our post-hoc speciesist rationalisation of the relationship (“animals matter less because they’re not our species”). It’s not clear to me that us being able to speak to advanced AIs will mean that any of a), b) and c) won’t apply in their dealings with us (or, indeed, in our dealings with them).
By clearly defining ownership and legal autonomy, property rights reduce conflict by ensuring that individuals and groups have recognized control over their own resources, rather than relying on brute force to assert their control. As this system has largely worked to keep the peace between humans—who can mutually communicate and coordinate with each other—I am relatively optimistic that it can also work for AIs. This helps explain why I favor integrating AIs into the same legal and economic systems that protect human property rights.
I remain deeply unpersuaded I’m afraid. GIven where we’re at on interpretability and alignment vs capabilities, this just feels more like a gorilla or an ant imagining how their relationship with an approaching human is going to go. These are alien minds the AI companies are creating. But I’ve already said this, so I’m not sure how helpful it is – just my intuition.

Alistair Stewart Feb 4, 2025, 11:47 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
I subscribe to an eliminativist theory of consciousness
V interesting!
I am closer to a pure preference utilitarian than a hedonistic utilitarian. As a consequence, I care more about AI preferences than AI sentience per se. In a behavioral sense, AI agents could have strong revealed preferences even if they lack phenomenal consciousness.
Does this mean you consider e.g. corporations to have moral worth, because they demonstrate consistent revealed preferences (like a preference to maximise profit)?
I think there are strong pragmatic reasons to give AIs certain legal rights, even if they don’t have moral worth. Specifically, I think granting AIs economic rights would reduce the incentives for AIs to deceive us, plot a violent takeover, or otherwise undermine human interests, while opening the door to positive-sum trade between humans and AIs.
New to me – thanks for sharing. I think I’m (much) more pessimistic than you on cooperation between us and advanced AI systems, mostly because of a) the ways in which many humans use and treat less powerful / collectively intelligent humans and other species and b) it seeming very unclear to me that AGI/ASI would necessarily be kinder.
At least insofar as we’re talking about individual liberties, I think I’m willing to bite the bullet on this question. We already recognize various categories of humans as lacking the maturity or proper judgement to make certain choices for themselves. The most obvious category is children, who (in most jurisdictions) are legally barred from entering into valid legal contracts, owning property without restrictions, dropping out of school, or associate with others freely. In many jurisdictions, adult humans can also be deemed incapable of consenting to legal contracts, often through a court order.
These are good points and I now realise refer to negative (rather than positive) rights. I agree with you that we should restrict certain rights of less agentic/intelligent sentient individuals – like the negative rights you list above, plus some positive rights like the right to vote and drive. This doesn’t feel like much of a bullet bite to me.
I continue to believe strongly that some negative rights like the right not to be exploited or hurt ought to be grounded solely in sentience, and not at all in intelligence or agency.

Alistair Stewart Feb 4, 2025, 10:56 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
Traditionally, economic rights like the freedom to own property are seen as negative rights, not positive rights. The reason is because, in many contexts, economic rights are viewed as defenses against arbitrary interference from criminal or state actors (e.g., protection from crime, unjust expropriation, or unreasonable regulations).
Appreciate this – I didn’t know this, makes sense!
Since these categories are often difficult to distinguish in practice, I preferred to sidestep this discussion in my post, and focused instead on a dichotomy which felt more relevant to the topic at hand.
I tend to think that negative vs positive rights remains a better framing than welfare vs rights, partly because I’m not aware of there being a historical precedent for using welfare vs rights in this way. At least in the animal movement this isn’t what that dichotomy means – though perhaps one would see this dichotomy across movements rather than within a single movement. If you have reading on this please do share.

Alistair Stewart Feb 4, 2025, 8:29 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: AI welfare vs. AI rights
Good contribution.
I don’t think I agree with this dichotomy:
there is a tendency for these approaches to come apart in the following way:
- A welfare approach often treats entities as passive recipients of care who require external protection. For example, when advocating for child welfare, one might support laws that prevent child abuse and ensure children’s basic needs are met.
- A rights approach, by contrast, often recognizes entities as active agents who should be granted control over their own lives and resources. For example, historically, those advocating for minority rights have pushed for legal recognition of their autonomy, such as the ability to own property, choose their employment, enter enforceable legal contracts, and seek legal recourse through the courts.
Moral advocates – whether for enslaved humans, foetuses or animals – often couch their advocacy in the framework/language of ‘rights’, even though the rights they were demanding were closer to “protection” than “autonomy”.
I think what you’re getting at here is something like negative vs positive rights, where negative rights are ‘freedoms from’ (e.g. freedom from discrimination, bondage, exploitation, being killed) and positive rights are ‘freedoms to’ (e.g. freedom to own property, vote, marry).
And I broadly disagree with this, or at least would say it’s missing out on the most important point (sentience):
In my view, if AIs possess agency and intelligence comparable to or greater than that of human adults, they should not merely be afforded welfare protections but should also be granted legal rights that allow them to act as independent agents
In my view, moral worth/value/consideration is grounded solely in sentience, which is something like the capacity to have positively- and negatively-valenced experiences. (I might go further, and say moral worth is grounded solely in the capacity to suffer, but I’m not sure about that currently).
Agency and intelligence are morally irrelevant to this first, fundamental question of moral consideration. Otherwise why wouldn’t the same go for humans? Are more agentic, more intelligent humans deserving of more welfare or more negative rights that e.g. cognitively impaired humans? (Of course agency and intelligence are relevant to positive rights, like the right to vote or drive.)
Finally – I strongly believe we should oppose the creation of artifical sentience, at the very least until we’re sure they won’t endure (meaningful) suffering. I’d call myself a digital antinatalist, following @RichardP’s piece here.

Alistair Stewart Feb 4, 2025, 8:26 PM
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: nathanhb’s comment on: We should prevent the creation of artificial sentience
I think worrying about suffering is overblown.
Can you say more about this? Sounds extremely morally unintuitive to me. Check out Brian Tomasik’s work here: https://reducing-suffering.org/the-horror-of-suffering/

Alistair Stewart Feb 4, 2025, 10:10 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Benquo’s comment on: Ethical Veganism is Wrong
Again, my question: do you think that non-consensually farming cognitively impaired humans for their flesh/secretions, given net-positive lives and no negative externalities, would be morally justifiable (or good)?
I think we shouldn’t exploit any sentient beings (i.e. use them as a means to an end without their consent), regardless of their species or substrate. I’m not sure whether this is because I believe exploitation is intrinsically morally wrong, or whether it’s because I think it’s a helpful proxy for suffering (something I do think is intrinsically morally bad, at least suffering beyond a certain threshold).
Do you disagree—either with my definition of exploitation, or with my normative claim that we shouldn’t exploit sentient beings?

Alistair Stewart Feb 3, 2025, 5:35 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: emre kaplan🔸’s comment on: Why is ‘animal welfare’ more common in EA than ‘animal rights’?
Interesting – I hadn’t heard that point of view before.
I think I see where you’re coming from, but I would say any kind of moral advocacy is in tension with nonviolent communication. You can go from talking about about “improving farmed animal welfare with systemic interventions” to “you are unnecessarily hurting animals by not being vegan” all in the language and framework of welfare.
This line of yours definitely continues to feel too strong to me:
>Rights based jargon is in strong tension with non-violent communication. Rights based jargon invokes a frame in which some people are sinners and should be punished.

Alistair Stewart Feb 3, 2025, 5:26 PM
4 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Cornelis Dirk Haupt’s comment on: If EAs existed 100 years ago, would they support Prohibition?
I think reactions to this this 2020 comment by @Gregory Lewis🔸 – which criticises Wayne Hsiung for his proposal to disrupt EAG SF 2015 over their decision to serve animals at the conference – is evidence of the way in which Benjamin Lay would have been treated by EAs.
I’m sympathetic to both sides here.
On the one hand, your community’s cohesiveness will be undermined if you don’t punish people who deliberately and provactively violate your community norms and polarise your community in the pursuit of political goals. I’m inclined to think that EAs talking about upholding norms like “helpfulness, honesty, compromise, and friendliness” is more about protecting the EA community than actually being the best way to maximise the good with a given unit of resources, even in the long term.
On the other, I think disruptive and norm-breaking tactics like those deployed by Lay and Hsiung are a) justified under many circumstances and b) necessary for effecting social change. And I worry some EAs are too quick to dismiss radicals like Lay and Hsiung for reasons that are more aesthetic than anything else.

Alistair Stewart Feb 2, 2025, 4:34 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: emre kaplan🔸’s comment on: Why is ‘animal welfare’ more common in EA than ‘animal rights’?
>Rights based jargon is in strong tension with non-violent communication. Rights based jargon invokes a frame in which some people are sinners and should be punished.
Seems wrong to me – can you say more?

Alistair Stewart Feb 2, 2025, 4:14 AM
13 points
5 ∶ 0
in reply to: Yelnats T.J.’s comment on: If EAs existed 100 years ago, would they support Prohibition?
A more discomforting question is whether EA would have tolerated people who were pro-slavery!

Alistair Stewart Jan 29, 2025, 8:02 PM
19 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Open thread: January—March 2025
Hi, I’m Alistair – I’m intending to spend more time reading and posting on the Forum, so wanted to introduce myself here.
I think I came across EA online during early 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown, and I remember feeling it was such an obviously good idea that I was surprised that no one had come up with it before about 2008! EA was a significant influence on my decision to go vegan and my coming to consider our use and treatment of sentient non-humans to be a moral atrocity. It also sparked my concern about AI safety.
I’m currently lead organiser of the AI, Animals, & Digital Minds conference in London in June 2025, and would love to speak to people who are interested in the intersection of those three things, especially if they’re in London.
I’ll be co-working in the LEAH Coworking Space and the Ambitious Impact office in London in 2025, and will be in the Bay Area in California in Feb-Mar for EAG Bay Area (if accepted) and the AI for Animals conference there. Please reach out by DM!
Interested in:
- Sentience- & suffering-focused ethics; sentientism; painism; s-risks
- Animal ethics & abolitionism
- AI safety & governance
- Activism, direct action & social change
- Trying to make transformative AI go less badly for sentient beings, regardless of species and substrate
Bio:
- From London
- BA in linguistics at the University of Cambridge
- Almost five years in the British Army as an officer
- MSc in global governance and ethics at University College London
- One year working full time in environmental campaigning and animal rights activism at Plant-Based Universities / Animal Rising
- Now pivoting to the (future) impact of AI on biologically and artifically sentient beings