Contractor RA to Peter Singer, Princeton
Fai
Karma: 1,623
Hey Will (or anyone that sees this), if you can still see this reply, can you let me know what you think about this set arguments supporting that WAS is a longtermist issue?
The four main arguments:
I think it is quite clearly plausible to argue that what we do now will probably impact wild animals in the far future. This argument means that current WAS work can be perceived as potentially longtermist. But we have to establish WAS as a worthy longtermist issue.
In terms of potential, the number of wild animals that can exist in the future seems to far exceed the number of humans/human-like organisms that can exist in the future (but maybe lower than the potential “number” of artificial minds). This makes it seem plausible to argue that the amount of potential well-being and suffering at stake for wild animals is at least of the same order of magnitude of importance for such potential for humans/human-like organisms. This argument means that WAS is plausibly a worthy longtermist issue.
One way to view the cause area of WAS is to view it as the first stage of achieving high positive welfare for wild animals. If we have certain obligations in making future humans/human-like organisms capable of attaining more, higher, and longer positive experiences than average humans now are, it seems to me to be plausible to conceive the possibility that the correct moral theory could entail certain obligations to make non-human animals more capable of attaining positive experiences. And since the potential number of possible non-human animals that can exist seems to far exceed humans/human like organisms, it seems to me plausible to argue that such obligation is at least on the same order of magnitude to that toward humans/human-like organisms.
Notice that if one thinks that there is an obligation to create more humans/human-like organisms to experience good lives, this point is actually made stronger. You might see why this is the case later.
This argument is similar to the arguments made on value spreading made by others in this thread, but not exactly. Changing the society’s current view on WAS might have huge implications/impacts on the welfare of future artificial minds that take the form or appearance of wild animals, for example those that exist in nature/evolution simulations. It is conceivable that humanity’s current and near-future views on WAS will partially stay in the far future, and if it does it seems quite possibly catastrophic. For example, if humans continue to value the “intrinsic beauty/value” of thriving and diverse ecosystems over the suffering that happens together, or even sees the suffering as part of the “beauty”, nature simulations might be deliberately built with the suffering.
The first two arguments hinge largely on the premise that the potential number of non-human animals that can exist in the future far exceed that of humans/human-like organisms. As some of you might not agree with this, I think it might be necessary for me to explain why I think so. If you don’t disagree with this, you don’t need to read further.
First, I am only speaking of the highest potential numbers, not an expected estimate of the actual numbers. Second, I meant to separate physically existing animals and humans from digitally simulated/emulated animals and humans, because I can’t see a convincing reason why the number of digital humans will be more than animals, nor the reverse.
So why is the potential number of non-human animals higher than that of humans? Basically it is because for any planet that is habitable for humans and can be turned into human-habitable ones, it will also be extremely likely to become habitable for non-human animals. And since non-human animals can be much smaller than humans, their number potential has to be higher.
Also, after arguing for the potential number of organisms, I would like to express my view on the expected number of animals that are human/non-human: I think the expected number of physical non-human animals is (maybe substantially) higher than physical humans/human-like organisms. Four arguments makes me quite confident about this:
A. It is possible that future humans/human-like organisms would want to intentionally bring or create wild animals to terraformed planets. A 1% chance of this being true would imply more non-human animals than humans brought to life.
B. Even if humans won’t be specifically interested in bringing/creating animals, an interest in bringing or just allowing some “nature” or “wilderness” (which basically have to have at least plants) to those planets will likely spawn animals to live naturally.
C. Even if humans will be eager to prevent nature/wilderness as much as practical, some animals might still be allowed to spawn to life. For example, because they have no interest in preventing or destroying “every bit of nature” due to diligence of energy use, or because biological processes might still be perceived as one of the most efficient ways to produce certain things (such as metabolizable calories).
D. It seems likely or at least possible that humans/human-like organisms will not be the last physical animal to go extinct.
Last but not least, I have one last potential argument in reply to the view that some hold, that claims that the expected number of non-human animals will be far less than humans/human-like organisms/artificial minds (and therefore WAS is not a longtermist issue). The argument probably is better illustrated in the form of a question: Should it be the case? Regardless of what probability distribution we assign to this future scenario, whether this future scenario is ethically good/ideal/right is another question, one that we have yet to ask let alone answer. To decide now that this scenario will be the case and we will leave it as it is seems to me to be premature and irresponsible. (Part of the current WAS research agenda is to gain insights on relevant population ethics problems.)
Thank you for the really cool and interesting post! I think it deserves much more attention and hope my comment would refresh some priority to it.
I want to comment on your recalled memory on people’s reaction to MCE as one of the best interventions within longtermism. I think the meaning of the phrase “before they (MCE and animal advocates) learn and became interested in longtermism” is either being unclear or being unfair.
If the meaning of “longtermism” here means EA/philosophical/Toby Ordian longtermism, then the claim that MCE and animal advocates seems to have “learned it later” is almost universally true. But it is also unfair, because one doesn’t have to learn specific type of longtermism to think that one’s action should mainly consider long term effects. And as someone working in the EA tangential animal movement for 3 yr+, I actually came across multiple EA/non-EA animal advocates/groups whose work and philosophy are decidedly for the “long term” benefit of non-human animals (though they don’t specify what “long term” means in ways like the average EA longtermists do), and some of them haven’t even heard of the word longtermism (until I asked and mentioned). *
If the meaning of “longtermism” here means simply doing and thinking things for the sake of making the far future better, then I think it is fair to say that at least some MCE/animal adovacates had been “longtermists in the rough sense” all the way. Some EA longtermists might object here, possibly pointing out that the lack of discussion about the physical possibilities/technological possibilities/deepness/scale/modes of existence of the future essentially renders a discussion not about longtermism. But notice that an MCE/animal advocate can still legitimately claim that they had always thought about the very long term, even if they had never thought about how long/deep/strange/potentious the future can maximally be.
Notice the above are also true for MCE advocates too, and they probably have even less suspicion of being “suddenly longtermist”.
To conclude, I am very skeptical that the argument that because “animal/MCE advocates had only later learned and became interested in longtermism, therefore there is a suspicious emergence in their attempt to argue that MCE is among one of the best or maybe the best intervention within longtermism.
*For example, in Mercy For Animals which was my previous employer, we had done the exercise of trying to imagine what the world will be like in 30 years due to the animal movement’s current work, and in that exercise we even tried to think what more could be done. 30 years certainly isn’t “long” for EA longtermists, maybe isn’t even mid-term for some. But it still shows that the animal advocates are not just interested in alleviating suffering that is happening now.
I think the last useful thing in this thread might be your last reply above. But I am going to share my final thoughts anyway.
I think I am still not convinced that the suspicion that animal/MCE advocates had “suddenly embraced longtermism” (in the loose sense, not the EA/philosophical/Toby Ordian sense) is justified, even if the animal advocates I said (like the ones in MFA) haven’t thought explicitly about the future beyond 100+ yrs, because they might have thought that they roughly had, maybe in a tacit assumption that what is being achieved in a few decades is going to be staying to be the norm for very long.
So using my MFA example again, I believe the exercise used 30 yrs for thinking not because they (we?) wanted to think only 30 years ahead, but that we kind of thought it might be the most realistic timeline for factory farming to disappear, maybe also that they can’t tolerate the thought that they and animals have to wait longer than 30 years. Imagine that if most of the team members in that exercise think that 100 years, or 200, or 1000 is the realistic timeline instead of 30, the exercise could easily have been done for 1000 years, which “magically” (and incorrectly) refutes the suspicion of “suddenly embracing longtermism”. But 30 years or 1000 years it be, the argument is the same, because they are thinking the same thing: that the terminal success will stay with the world for very long.
Actually everything said before can be summarised with this simple claim: that some (many?) animal advocates tend to tacitly think that they are going to have very long term or even eternal impacts. For example, if there isn’t a movement to eliminate factory farming, it will be there forever.
I think I actually have an alternative accusation toward average farmed animal advocates rather than “suddenly embracing longtermism”. I think their suffer from an overconfidence about the persistence and level of goodness of their perceived terminal success, which in turn might be due to lack of imagination, lack of thinking about counterfactual worlds, lack of knowledge about technologies/history, or reluctance to think of the possibility of bad things happening for too much longer.
P.S. An alternative way to thinking about my counter to your counter argument is that, if whether someone’s thinking counts as long term thinking has to fit in some already given definition, it is possible for someone who seriously think a billion yrs ahead to accuse someone who had only previously thought about only a million yrs ahead to be “suddenly embracing longtermism”.
But, in terms of most of the picture, I think we are already quite on the same page, probably just not on the same sentence. I probably spent too much time on something trivial.
What is your view on how longtermism relates to or affects animal welfare work? Are you interested in potentially supporting someone to look into this intersection? If yes, what might be some of the sub-topics that you might be interested in? Thank you!
Re: Some thoughts on vegetarianism and veganism
I actually told some people to do this kind of diet. Even though I feel very uncertain about it.
I was always baffled by the fact that in Asia, when a lot of people speak of “cutting meat consumption”, they start by cutting the meat of cows When I tried to convince them that they should do the reverse, they look extremely surprised. It’s kind of a cultural thing here that cutting cow’s meat first is seen as standard, everyone kind of “knows it has to be the case”.
Thank you for the great post! I wrote a reply that is too long for here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AZyJdher64htcpKti/re-some-thoughts-on-vegetarianism-and-veganism
Preventing factory farming from spreading beyond the earth
Space governance, moral circle expansion (yes I am also proposing a new area of interest.)
Early space advocates such as Gerard O’Neill and Thomas Heppenheimer had both included animal husbandry in their designs of space colonies. In our time, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and NASA, have all expressed interests or announced projects to employ fish or insect farming in space.
This, if successful, might multiply the suffering of farmed animals by many times of the numbers of farmed animals on earth currently, spanned across the long-term future. Research is needed in areas like:
Continuous tracking of the scientific research on transporting and raising animals in space colonies or other planets.
Tracking, or even conducting research on the feasibility of cultivating meat in space.
Tracking the development and implementation of AI in factory farming, which might enable unmanned factory farms and therefore make space factory farming more feasible. For instance, the aquaculture industry is hoping that AI can help them overcome major difficulties in offshore aquaculture. (This is part of my work)
How likely alternative proteins like plant-based meat, cultivated meat, are to substitute all types of factory farming, including fish and insect farming.
The timelines of alternative proteins, particularly cultivated meat . We are particularly interested in its comparison with space colonization timelines, or in other words, whether alternative proteins will succeed before major efforts of space colonization.
Philosophical work on the ethics of space governance, in relation to nonhuman animals.
(note: I am actually writing a blogpost on factory farming in space/in the long-term future, stay tuned or write a message to me if you are interested)
(update: I posted it: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bfdc3MpsYEfDdvgtP/why-the-expected-numbers-of-farmed-animals-in-the-far-future)
Wild animal suffering in space
Space governance, moral circle expansion.
Terraforming other planets might cause animals to come to exist in these planets, either because of intentional or unintentional behaviors. These animals might live net negative lives.
Also, we cannot rule out the possibility that there are already wild “animals” (or any form of sentient beings) who might be suffering from net negative lives in other planets. (this does not relate directly to the Fermi Paradox, which is highly intelligent lives, not lives per se)
Relevant research include:
Whether wild animals lead net negative or positive lives on earth, under what conditions. And whether this might hold the same in different planets.
Tracking, or even doing research on using AI and robotics to monitor and intervene with habitats. This might be critical if there planets there are planets that has wild “animals”, but are uninhabitable for humans to stay close and monitor (or even intervene with) the welfare of these animals.
Communication strategies related to wild animal welfare, as it seem to tend to cause controversy, if not outrage.
Philosophical research, including population ethics, environmental ethics, comparing welfare/suffering between species, moral uncertainty, suffering-focused vs non-suffering focused ethics.
General philosophical work on the ethics of space governance, in relation to nonhuman animals.
This sounds great! I particularly liked that you brought up S-risks and MCE. I think these are important considerations.
Why the expected numbers of farmed animals in the far future might be huge
Thank you Saulius! I basically agree with everything you said here. I would really hope some people from the space governance space can give us some insights here. Do you happen to know some of them?
Hi Dony! Thank you for your comment!
I think I disagree with your view here. Let me explain why.
Consider these two objective functions:
Maximize the efficiency of raising tilapia (or any species of animals)
Minimize the chance that the tilapia raised live net negative lives
I think we shouldn’t expect that optimizing for 1 would always, robustly, ensure that 2 is also optimized at the same time. I think highly intelligent systems are quite likely to identify ways to optimize for 1 that do not optimize for 2 at all. In fact, we probably don’t need AI for that. I believe the sole reason that classical, non-intensive, family sized type of raising animals became factory farming exactly because the industry was interested in optimizing for 1, with no regard for 2. I understand that your argument is that, you believe, resource scarcity will make people take “good care” of the animals. But it seems clear to me that the reason they will take good care, is to optimize for 1 and only 1. Unless we can bioengineer a new species of animal of which optimizing for 1 always optimize for 2 at the same time, I am not convinced that we can confidently expect farmed animals in space live net positive lives.
Re: banning factory farming. I think an important consideration is whether this will be done before large scale space exploration and colonization. If factory farming already spread far and wide everywhere in the universe, the earth or nearby planets banning factory farming might not have major effects.
Thank you for your comment!
Yes, I recognize that some longtermists bite the bullet and admit that humanity virtually only have instrumental values, but I am not sure if they are the majority, it seems like they are not. In any case, it seems to me that the vast majority of longtermists either think the focus should be humanity, or digital beings. Animals are almost always left out of the picture.
I think you are right that “part of this” is a strategy to avoid weird messaging, but I think most longtermists I discussed with do not think that humanity do not matter, probably especially with new longtermists. Also, naming of initiatives such as human compatible AI, value alignment, learning from humans, etc, makes me feel that these people genuinely care about the future of humanity.
And I am not even sure digital sentience is even possible, we haven’t even proven that it is possible, right? And I don’t even know how to think about the feasibility of digital sentience. Maybe you can introduce me to some readings?
I find the neuron count model implausible. 1. Human infants have more neurons than adult humans. 2. Some nonhuman animals have more neurons than humans (btw, I have some credence, albeit low, that some nonhuman animals have higher moral weights than humans, 1v1) . 3. Using the neuron count model would also create seemingly absurd prescriptions. The total number of nematode neurons exceed that of humans, which would prescribe a focus on nematodes more than humans, which would sound no less absurd than focusing all on insect larvae. (nonetheless, I don’t put 0 credence to these possibilities) 4. There are evidence that within humans, the capacity to suffer has great variety, down to the extreme which some humans barely ever feel pain or suffer, and there were no evidence these vast differences was because of neuron counts.
In any case, my aim for this post is literally to present the number of animals, while also made the case that I expect most of these animals to be either fish or insects. Essentially this leaves the readers to judge how they deduce the importance of farmed animals in their moral and cause prioritization.
It depends on the probability one assigns to the scenario. If we assume we will 100% get that scenario, my upper estimates would shrink a lot, because presumably digital people would have little incentives to keep non-digital farmed animals. But unless the earth will also be replaced with primarily digital beings, my estimates for the expected number of farmed animals on earth in the far future might still roughly hold.
And it depends on what you mean by “primarily”. If that means some small portion of the universe will still be occupied by humans, the number of farmed animals could still be much bigger than “earth only” numbers.
Also, it depends on what you mean by “tons” here. If you meant many times more (i.e. 10,000x to 1 bil x) than the farmed animals that will exist in the next 100 years, I think the answer could still be yes with a far future universe filled primarily with digital beings. If you meant as many as the number of digital beings, then the answer is quite clearly no if we assume your scenario will happen (not suggesting that it will certainly happen), the ratio of non-digital farmed animals : digital beings would be a number very close to 0 , even though the absolute number of non-digital farmed animals is itself enormous.
I am glad I sort of answered your question!
It happens that I also worry about digital suffering, but I have two great uncertainties:
Whether artificial consciousness is possible.
If 1 is possible, whether these beings can have the capacity for positive and negative experiences.
My uncertainty in 1 is much greater, like maybe 100x to 2. I wonder what your credence in artificial sentience is? It would be very useful for me if you can share. Am I right about my guess that you think, even after adjusting for the probability of creating digital beings vs probability of space factory farming, you still think the expected number of digital beings is still greater (or the ratio of moral significance)?
(btw, you might have realised I said digital beings instead of people, I cannot think of reasons why there will be digital people but not digital animals, unless the word “people included them)
Sorry that I missed your comment and therefore the late reply!
Thank you for sharing. Let me clarify your suggestion here, do you mean you suggest me to give my model of accounting for moral significance, rather than just writing about the number of beings involved?
Also, do you mind sharing your credence of the possibility of digital sentience?
Hi Alene, Thank you for writing this! I am glad that a lot of people (James’s) are discussing here. I hope this is the beginning a lot of useful discussions!
Hey James (Faville), yes you should publish these reports! I look forward them in published form. (I believe I haven’t read the draft for the AS one)
marsxr, thank you for putting this blogpost up. While I appreciate that your contribution to the forum, I disagree with the solutions and the objections you raised, and also the strategy you used in writing this blogpost.
First, I am a believer to get the best argument from oneself, one needs to steel-man the arguments/positions held by the party you are arguing against, instead of straw-manning them. The way you put the animal welfare movement’s work as playing music to animals is not only unrepresentative of EA+non EA farmed animal welfare groups’s work, it is downright inaccurate. No farmed animal advocacy group I know of prmote the use of music, instead, they advocate for welfare reforms such as moving away from cages or using regulated stunning during slaughter, to legal reforms, to the promotion of plant based options.
Second, I suggest to stick to less points that are more crucial, especially ones that you haven’t developed or explained in details. For example I am confused by the point on the religious aspects of killing. I am probably equally confused by your point on using anti cruelty laws to our advantage. This is actually a pillar of many farmed animal groups. It seems to me that you are unaware of both existing work on this area, and the difficulty to use general anti animal cruelty laws to the advantage of farmed animals.
So let’s discuss about your core arguments, and let me attempt to steel man your arguments. You seem to be suggesting these key points:
1. That meat’s demand is driven by the low price-essential nutrient level, which I very much agree.
2. That meat’s current low price in the consumer market is caused by two main factors, the non-consideration of meat’s external costs, and the subsidies given on top of that. I agree on this.
3. You seem to implicitly deduce that if we succeed in forcing those externalities back to the farmers, we will have much less meat demanded. If this is what you meant I am not very sure about it validity (or mine). This might be true for commonly eaten meats in the west such as lamb and beef. But the externalities are much lower for animal products like eggs, poultry, fish and crustaceans, and even more so when in the future insect farming becomes popular. It is unclear to me that even requiring the farmers of the mentioned animal products to pay for all the externalities would make all animal products demanded by so much less that welfare reform becomes meaningless.
4. You didn’t explcitly conclude it this way, but it seems like your conclusion is therefore that we should not focus on animal welfare improvement, but instead work on retifying the government policies that support the production of meat (animal products).
I actually cannot agree with this conclusion, if I presented it correctly. My objections are fourfold, one argument is in point 3 above, the others are:
A. Unless welfare reform will slow down the elimination of factory farming or even make it impossible. It seems to me that even if there will be a day factory farming will be totally eliminated, improving welfare before reaching that day is important. And I don’t see how welfare reforms can impair the ultimate goal.
B. Some government policies are hard to change, and this is quite true for those that involve agricultural products. And I think we should consider the possibility that factory farming will still be supported by governments for a long time. As you had pointed out, a lot of poor people rely on these “cheap proteins”, why would the governments risk destroying their lives? Also, the fact that a lot of externalities of producing meat actually are burndened upon countries that do not produce that piece of meat. I don’t quite see how governments will suddenly become so morally enlightened that they dare to charge for externalities that are external to their countries.
C. If anything would eliminate factory farming, it seems to me to be the emergence of meat alternatives that are superior to real animal products in all meaningful ways such as economics, environment, aesthetics, tastes and nutrition. It could either be plant based mock animal products, or cultivated animal products. I actually see this as the way more likely reason why factory farming might go obsolete. But I don’t think, and I haven’t heard anyone working to promote alternatives, that we should stop promoting better welfare (or elimination of the worst welfare practices). To the contrary, they are actually generally very supportive of welfare reforms.
To conclude my own, I think welfare reforms has a lot of benefits, both in the short run and mid-to-long run, that it is worth pursuing.
Looking forward to feedbacks to my take!