Non-consequentialist effective altruism/animal welfare/cause prio/longtermism
GideonF
Karma: 2,370
I assume is this is an accidental mispelling of Quakerism
There seems to be this belief that arthopod welfare is some ridiculous idea only justified by extreme utilitarian calculations, and that loads of EA animal welfare money goes to it at the expensive of many other things, and this just seems really wrong to me. Firstly, arthropods hardly get any money at all, they are possibly the most neglected, and certainly amongst the most neglected, areas of animal welfare. Secondly, the argument for arthropod welfare is essentially exactly the same as your classic antispeciesist arguments; there aren’t morally relevant differences between arthropods and other animals that justifies not equally considering their interests (or if you want to be non-utilitarian, equally considering them). Insects can feel pain (or certainly, the evidence is probably strong enough that they would probably pass the bar of sentience under UK law), and have other sentient experiences, so why would we not care about their welfare? Indeed, non-utilitarian philosophers also take this idea seriously: Christine Korsgaard, one of the most prominent Kantian philosophers today, sees insects as part of the circle of animals that are under moral consideration, and Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is restricted to sentient animals, and I think we have good reason to think insects are sentient as well. Many insects seem to have potentially rich inner lives, and have things that go well and badly for them, things they strive to do, feelings of pain etc. What principled reason could we give for their exclusion, that wouldn’t be objectionably speciesist. Also, all arthropod welfare work at present is about farmed animals; those farmed animals just happen to be arthropods!
Some useful practical ideas that could emerge:
Inform what welfare requiremens ought to be put into law when farming insects
Inform and lobby the insect farming industry to protect these welfare requirements (eg corporate campaigns); do this in a similar way to how decapod welfare research has informed the work of the Shrimp Welfare Project
Understand the impacts of pesticides on insect welfare, and use this to lobby for pesticide substitutes
Improve the evidence base of insect sentience such that they can be incorporated into law (although I think the evidence is probably at least as strong as decapods which are already seen as sentient under UK Law).
Insect suffering is here now and real, and there is a lot of practical things we could do about it; dismissing it as ‘head in the cloud philosophers’ seems misguided to me
I think it’s probably important to note that some people (ie me) do in fact think a unilateral pause by one of the major players (eg USA, China, UK, EU) may actually be pretty effective if done in the right way with the right messaging (likely to be useful in pushing towards a coordinated or uncoordinated global pause). Particularly if the US paused, I could very much see this starting a change reaction
I think this is untrue with regards to animal protests. My impression is a decently significant percentage of EA people working on animals have participated in protests
As another former fellow and research manager (climate change), this seems perhaps a bit of a strange justification.
The infrastructure is here—similar to Moritz’s point, whilst Cambridge clearly has a very strong AI infrastructure, the comparative advantage of Cambridge over any other location, would, at least to my mind, be the fact it has always been a place of collaboration across different cause areas and considerations of the intersections and synergies involved (ie through CSER). It strikes me that in fact other locales, such as London (which probably has one of the highest concentration of AI Governance talent in the world) may have been a better location than Cambridge. I think this idea that Cambridge is best suited for purely AI seems surprising, when many fellows commented (me included) on the usefulness of having people from lots of different cause areas around, and the events we managed to organise (largely due to the Cambridge location) were mostly non-AI yet got good attendence throughout the cause areas.
Success of AI-safety alumni—similar to Moritz, I remain skeptical of this point (I think there is a closely related point which I probably endorse, which I will discuss later). It doesn’t seem obvious that, when accounting for career level, and whether participants were currently in education, that AI safety actually scores better. Firstly, you have the problem of differing sample size, for example, take climate change; there have only been 7 climate change fellows (5 of which were last summer, and of those (depending on how you judge it), only 3 have been available for job opportunities for more than 3 months after the fellowship, so the sample size is much smaller than AI Safety and governance (and they have achieved a lot in that time). Its also, ironically, not clear that the AI Safety and Governance cause areas have been more successful at the metric of ‘engaging in AI Safety projects’; for example, 75% of one of the non-AI cause areas’ fellows from 2022 are currently employed in, or have offers for PhD’s in, AI XRisk related projects, which seems a similar rate of success than AI in 2022.
I think the bigger thing that acts in favour of making it AI focused it that it is much easier for junior people to get jobs or internships in AI Safety and Governance than in XRisk focused work in some other cause areas; there simply are more role available for talented junior people that are clearly XRisk related. This might be clearly one reason to make ERA about AI. However, whilst I mostly buy this argument, its not 100% clear to me that this means counterfactual impact is higher. Many of the people entering into the AI safety part of the programme may have gone on to fill these roles anyway (I know of something similar to this being the case with a few rejected applicants), or the person whom they got the role above may have been only marginally worse. Whereas, for some of the cause areas, the participants leaned less XRisk-y by background, so ERA’s counterfactual impact may be stronger, although it also may be higher variance. I think on balance, this does seem to support the AI switch, but by no margin am I sure of this.
It seems that the successful opposition to previous technologies was indeed explicitly against that technology, and so I’m not sure the softening of the message you suggest is actually necessarily a good idea. @charlieh943 recent case study into GM crops highlighted some of this (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6jxrzk99eEjsBxoMA/go-mobilize-lessons-from-gm-protests-for-pausing-ai—he suggests emphasising the injustice of the technology might be good); anti-SRM activists have been explictly against SRM (https://www.saamicouncil.net/news-archive/support-the-indigenous-voices-call-on-harvard-to-shut-down-the-scopex-project), anti-nuclear activists are explicitly against nuclear energy and many more. Essentially, I’m just unconvinced that ‘its bad politics’ is necessarily supported by case studies that are most relevant to AI.
Nonetheless, I think there are useful points here both about what concrete demands could look like, or who useful allies could be, and what more diversified tactics could look like. Certainly, a call for a morotorium is not necessarily the only thing that could be useful in pushing towards a pause. Also, I think you make a point that a ‘pause’ might not be the best message that people can rally behind, although I reject the opposition. I think, in a similar way to @charlieh943 that emphasising injustice may be one good message that can be rallied around. I also think a more general ‘this technology is dangerous and allowing companies to make it are dangerous’ may also be a useful rallying message, which I have argued for in the past https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Q4rg6vwbtPxXW6ECj/we-are-fighting-a-shared-battle-a-call-for-a-different
I feel in a number of areas this post relies on the concept of AI being constructed/securitised in a number of ways that seem contradictory to me. (By constructed, I am referring to the way the technology is understood, percieved and anticipated, what narratives it fits into and how we understand it as a social object. By securitised, I mean brought into a limited policy discourse centred around national security that justifies the use of extraordinary measures (eg mass surveillance or conflict) to combat, concerned narrowly with combatting the existential threat to the state, which is roughly equal to the government, states territory and society. )
For example, you claim that hardware would be unlikely to be part of any pause effort, which would imply that AI is constructed to be important, but not necessarily exceptional (perhaps akin to climate change). This is also likely what would allow companies to easily relocate without major issues. You then claim it is likely international tensions and conflict would occur over the pause, which would imply thorough securitisation such that breaching a pause would be considered a threat enough to national security that conflict could be counternanced; therefore exceptional measures to combat the existential threat are entirely justified(perhaps akin to nuclear weapons or even more severe). Many of your claims of what is ‘likely’ seem to oscillate between these two conditions, which in a single juristiction seem unlikely to occur simultaeously. You then need a third construction of AI as a technology powerful and important enough to your country to risk conflict with the country that has thoroughly securitised it. SImilarly there must be elements in the paused country that are powerful that also believe it is a super important technology that can be very useful, despite its thorough securitisation (or because of it; I don’t wish to project securitisation as necessarily safe or good! Indeed, the links to military development, which could be facilitated by a pasue, may be very dangerous indeed.)
You may argue back two points; either that whilst all the points couldn’t occur simultanously, they are all pluasible. Here I agree, but then the confidence in your language would need to be toned down. Secondly that these different constructions of AI may differ across juristictions, meaning that all of these outcomes are likely. This also seems certainly unlikely, as countries are impacted by each other; narratives do spread, particularly in an interconnected world and particularly if they are held by powerful actors. Moreover, if powerful states are anywhere close to risking conflict over this, other economic or diplomatic measures, would be utilised first, likely meaning the only countries that would continue to develop it would be those who construct it as a super important (those who didn’t would likely give into the pressure). In a world where the US or China construct the AI Pause as a vital matter of national security, middle ground countries in their orbit allowing its development would not be counternanced.
I’m not saying a variety of constructions are not plausible. Nor am I saying that we necessarily fall to the extreme painted in the above paragraph (honestly this seems unlikely to me, but if we don’t then a Pause by global cooperation seems more plausible). Rather, I am suggesting that as it stands your idea of ‘likely outcomes’, are, together, very unlikely to happen, as they rely on different worlds to one another.
I think the most likely thing is that on a post like this the downvotes vs disagreevotes distinction isn’t very strong. Its suggestions, so one would upvite the suggestions one likes most, and downvote those you like least (to contribute to visibility). If this is the case, I think its pretty fair to be honest.
If not, then I can only posit a few potential reasons, but these all seem bad to me that I would assume the above is true:
People think 80K platforming people who think climate change could contribute to XRisk would be actively harmful (eg by distracting people from more important problems)
People think 80K platforming Luke (due to his criticism of EA- which I assume they think is wrong or bad faith) would be actively harmful, so it shouldn’t be considered
People think having a podcast specifically talking about what EA gets wrong about XRisk would be actively harmful (perhaps it would turn newbies off, so we shouldn’t have it)
People think suggesting Luke is trolling because they think their is no chance that 80K would platform him (this would feel very uncharitable towards 80K imo)
Christine Korsgaard on Kantian Approaches to animal welfare/ about her recent-ish book ‘Fellow Creatures’
Some of the scholars who’ve worked on Insects or Decapod and Pain/Sentience (Jonathan Birch, Meghan Barrett, Lars Chittika etc)
Bob Fischer on comparing interspecies welfare
Luke Kemp on:
Climate Change and Existential Risk
The role of Horizon Scans in Existential Risk Studies
His views on what EA gets wrong about XRisk
Deep Systems Thinking and XRisk.
Alternatively for another Climate Change and XRisk that would be narrower and less controversial/critical of EA than Luke is, Constantin Arnsschedit would be good
I think another discussion presenting SRM in the context of GCR might be good; there has now been a decent amount of research on this which probably proposes actions rather different from what SilverLining presents.
SilverLining is also decently controversial I the SRM community, so some alternative perspectives would probably be better than Kelly
Send me a DM if you’re interested, I’d be happy to provide a bunch of resources and to put you in contact with some people who could help send a bunch of resources
Hi John,
Sorry to revisit this, and I understand if you don’t. I must apologies if my previous comments felt a bit defensive from my side, as I do feel your statements towards me were untrue, but I think I have more clarity on the perspective you’ve come from and some of the possible baggage brought to this conversation, and I’m truly sorry if I’ve be ignorant of relevant context.
I think this comment is more going to address the overall conversation between us two on here, and where I perceive it to have gone, although I may be wrong, and I am open to corrections.
Firstly, I think you have assumed this statement is essentially a product of CSER, perhaps because it has come from me, who was a visit at CSER, and has been similarly critical of your work in a way that I know some at CSER have. [I should say, for the record on this, I do think your work is of high quality, and I hope you’ve never got the impression that I don’t. Perhaps some of my criticisms last year towards the review process your report went through felt poor quality (and I can’t remember what they were and may not stand by them today), but if so, I am sorry.] Nonetheless, I think its really important to keep in mind that this statement is absolutely not a ‘CSER’ statement; I’d like to remind you of the signatories, and whilst every signatory doesn’t agree with everything, I hope you can see why I got so defensive when you claimed that the signatories weren’t being transparent and actually attempting to just make EA another left-wing movement. I tried really hard to get a plurality of voices in this document, which is why such an accusation offended me, but ultimately I shouldn’t have got defensive over this, and I must apologise.
Secondly, on that point, I think we may have been talking about different things when you said ‘heterodox CSER approaches to EA.’ Certainly, I think Ehrlich and much of what he has called for is deeply morally reprehensible, and the capacity for ideas like his to gain ground is a genuine danger of pluralistic xrisk, because it is harder to police which ideas are acceptable or not (similarly, I have recieved criticism because this letter fails to call out eugenics explicitly, another danger). Nonetheless, I think we can trust as a more pluralistic community develops it would better navigate where the bounds of acceptable or unacceptable views and behaviours are, and that this would be better than us simply suggesting this now. Maybe this is a crux we/the signatories and much of the commens section disagree on. I think we can push for more pluralism and diversity in response to our situation whilst trusting that the more pluralistic ERS community will police how far this can go. You disagree and think we need to lay this out now otherwise it will either a) end up with anything goes, including views we find moral reprehensible or b) will mean EA is hijaked by the left. I think the second argument is weaker, particularly because this statement is not about EA, but about building a broader field of Existential Risk Studies, although perhaps you see this as a bit of a trojan horse. I understand I am missing some of the historical context that makes you think it is, but I hope that the signatories list may be enough to show you that I really do mean what I say when I call for pluralism.
I also must apologise if the call for retraction of certain parts of your comment seemed uncollegiate or disrespectful to you; this was certainly not my intention. I, however, felt that your painting of my views was incorrect, and thought you may, in light of this, be happy to change; although given you are not happy to retract, I assume you are either trying to make the argument that these are in fact my underlying beliefs (or that I am being dishonest, although I have no reason to suspect you would say this!).
I think there are a few more substantive points we disagree on, but to me this seems like the crux of the more heated discussion, and I must apologise it got so heated
Hi John Since I’ve corrected you that neither me nor Luke would agree with your characterisation of our positions, would you mind correcting this?
in response to your first point, I think one of the hopes of creating a pluralistic xrisk community is so that different parts of the community actually understand what work and persepctives each are doing, rather than either characturing them/misrepresenting them (for example, I’ve heard people outside EA assuming all EA XRisk work is basically just what Bostrom says) or just not knowing what other have to say. Ultimately, I think the workshop that this statement came out of did this really well, and so I hope if there is desire to move towards a more pluralistic community (which, perhaps from this forum, there isn’t) then we would better understand each others persepctives and why we disagree, and gain value from this disagreement. One example here is I think I personally have gained huge value from my discussions with John Halstead on climate, and really trying to understand his position.
I agree on the last paragraph, and is definitely a tension we will have to try anda resolve over time. This is one of the reasons we spoke about “we suggest that the power to confer support for different approaches should be distributed among the community rather than allocated by a few actors and funders, as no single individual can adequately manifest the epistemic and ethical diversity we deem necessary.” which would hopefully go someway to make sure that more forms of pluralism can assert themselves. Obviously, though, this won’t be perfect, and we will have to create spaces where voices that may previously not have been heard, because they don’t have all the money or aren’t loud and assertive, would get heard; this will be hard, and will definitely be difficult for someone like me who is clearly quite loud and likes to get my opinion out there.
NB: (I would also like to comment, and I really don’t want to be antagonistic to John as I do deeply respect him, but I do think his representation of ‘CSER-type heterodoxy’ or at least how he’s framed it with his two chief examples being me and Luke seems to me to be a misrepresentation. I know this may be arguing back too much, but given he’s said I believe something I don’t, I think its important to put the record straight (I’d hope its unintentional, although we have actually spoken a lot about my views))
I’m honestly rather confused with how people can disagree vote with this. I’d I get these stats wrong?
Thanks for this reply Stephen, and sorry for my late reply, I was away.
I think its true that Aschenbrenner gives (marginally) more consideration than I gave him credit for—not actually sure how I missed that paragraph to be honest! Even then, whilst there is some merit to that argument, I think he needs to much better justify his dismissal of an international treaty (along similar lines to your shortform piece). As I argue in the essay, I think that such lack of stability requires a particular reading of how states acts—for example, I argue if we buy a form of defensive realism, states may in fact be more inclined to reach a stable equilibrium/. Moreover, as I argue, I think Aschenbrenner fails to acknowledge how his ideas on this may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I actually think I just disagree with your characterisation of my second point, although it could well be a flaw in my communication, and if so I apologise. My argument isn’t even that values of freedom and democracy, or even a narrower form of ‘American values’ wouldn’t be better for the future (see below for more discussion on that), its that national securitisation has a bad track record at promoting collaboration and dealing with extreme risk and we have good reason to think it may be bad in the case of AI. So even if Aschenbrenner doesn’t frame it as national securitisation for the sake of nationalism, but rather national securitisation for the sake of all humanity, the impacts will be the same. The point of that paragraph was simply to preempt a critique that is exactly what you say. I also think its clear that Aschenbrenner in his piece is happy to conflate those values with ‘American nationalism/dominance’ (eg ‘America must win’), so I’m not sure him making this distinction actually matters.
I also probably am much less bearish on American dominance than Aschenbrenner is. I’m not sure the American national security establishment actually has a good track record of preserving a ‘raucous plurality’, and if (as Aschenbrenner wants) we expect superintelligence to be developed through that institution, I’m not overly confident in how good it will be. Whilst I am no friend of dictatorships, I’m also unconvinced that if one cares about raucous pluralism that US dominance, or certainly to the extent that Aschenbrenner envisions, is necessarily a good thing. Moreover, even in American democracy, the vast majority of moral patients aren’t represented at all. I’m essentially unconvinced that the benefits of America ‘winning’ a nationally securitised AI race anywhere near oughtweigh the geopolitical risk, misalignment risk, and most importantly the risk of not taking our time to construct a mutually beneficial future for all sentient beings. I think I have put this paragraph quite crudely, and would be happy to elaborate further, although it isn’t actually central to my argument.
I think its wrong to say that my argument doesn’t work without significant argument against those two premises. Firstly, my argument was that Aschenbrenner was ‘dangerous’, which required highlighting why the narrative choice was problematic. Secondly, yes, there is more to do on those points, but given Aschenbrenner’s failure to give in depth argumentation on those points, I thought that they would be better to deal with as their own pieces (which I may or may not right). In my view, the most important aspect of the piece was Aschenbrenner’s claim that national securitisation is necessary to secure the safest outcomes, and I do feel the piece was broadly successful at arguing that this is a dangerous narrative to propogate. I do think if you hold Aschenbrenner’s assumptions strongly, namely cooperation is very difficult, alignment is easy-ish and the most important thing is for an American AI lead as this leads to a maximally good future by maximising free expression and political expression, then my argument is not convincing. I do, however, think this model is based on some rather controversial assumptions, and given the dangers involved, woefully insufficiently justified by Aschenbrenner in his essay.
One final point is that it is still entirely non-obvious, as I mention in the essay, that national securitisation is the best frame even if a pause is impossible, or even weaker, if it is an unstable equilibrium.