Vasco Grilo🔸

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 26, 2025, 9:00 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Casey Darnley’s comment on: Wild An­i­mal Ini­ti­a­tive: EOY Fund­ing Up­date and Plans for 2025

  Thanks for clarifying, Casey! That makes sense.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 26, 2025, 8:50 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: David_Moss’s comment on: EA Sur­vey 2022: Geography

  Thanks, David! I am happy to wait for the post.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 25, 2025, 7:49 AM

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Henry Howard🔸’s comment on: Trans­for­ma­tive AI and wild an­i­mals: An ex­plo­ra­tion.

  Interesting questions, Henry! I strongly upvoted your comment^[1].

  “it at least somewhat increases the risk of animal life being propagated on more planets. This seems extremely bad, since we have no idea how to ensure that those animals will live good lives.”

  Do you assume that wild animal life is net negative?

  I share your scepticism about expanding wildlife being extremely bad. I am uncertain not only about whether wild animals have positive or negative lives, but also about whether increasing their population is easier or harder than decreasing it. I guess many are also uncertain about whether wild animals have positive or negative lives, but think that increasing the population of wild animals is easier than decreasing it, in which case not expanding wild life to other planets makes sense to maintain options more open.

  If given a magic button that instantaneously wiped out all wild animals, ignoring the consequences for humans of doing this, would you press it?

  Many are against expanding wild life based on the assumption that expanding it is easier than decreasing it. This suggests decreasing wild life is beneficial, but not necessarily until there is none at all. At some point, expanding wild life could become easier than decreasing it, such that decreasing it further would overall close options.

  I think people like me who are very uncertain about whether future welfare is positive or negative should not have strong views about whether the permanent elimination of all sentient beings would be beneficial or harmful, which is counterintuitive. However, I believe it has the very commonsensical implication of focussing on improving existing lives instead of increasing or decreasing the number of lives (even if one strongly endorses maximising total welfare like I do).

  1. ^

     It had −2 karma before my vote. Maitaining a scout mindset is not easy!

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 25, 2025, 6:49 AM

  10 points

  3 ∶ 2

  in reply to: Henry Howard🔸’s comment on: The Case for In­sect Consciousness

  Hi Henry,

  Consider these 2 scenarios:

  • A human has their hand cut, and reacts vigorously.

  • A human has their hand cut, and has no reaction at all.

  I do not know for sure whether pain was experienced in the 1st scenario. I can only feel my own pain. However, the 1st scenario is much more likely than the 2nd under the hypothesis that pain was experienced than under the hypothesis that no pain was experienced. So, from Bayes’ rule^[1], I should strongly update towards thinking that pain was experienced, and therefore towards the human being sentient.

  More broadly, one should update towards believing that a being is sentient if they share properties which are indicators of sentience in humans, such as reacting to damage made to body parts.

  1. ^

     “Posterior probability of pain”/​”posterior probability of no pain” = “probability of vigorous reaction given pain”/​”probability of vigorous reaction given no pain”*”prior probability of pain”/​”prior probability of no pain”.

The Case for In­sect Consciousness

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 24, 2025, 8:22 AM

  5 points

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  on: China Ve­gan So­ciety’s V-March results

  Thanks for sharing, Rakefet!

  - Over 80% of participants plan to continue following a plant-based diet!

  How many of the 7 M people you reached replied to the survey asking about whether they plan to continue following a plant-based diet? You may be interested in my cost-effectiveness analysis of Veganuary. I do not trust the results of Veganuary’s 6 month survey in 2024, according to which 81 % of people decreased their consumption of animal products over the last 6 months by at least 50 %, because only 0.0237 % as many people responded as reported participating in Veganuary in 2024.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 24, 2025, 7:09 AM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: In­sects Are Not Moder­ately Important

  Great post, Matthew! I agree thinking that insects have positive or negative lives results in counterintuitive consequences. I personally have little idea about whether they are positive or negative, but this also results in a counterintuitive conclusion. I am practically agnostic about the vast majority of actions, in the sense of not knowing whether they are beneficial or harmful, although I think some like GiveWell’s top charities are super beneficial or harmful due to very cost-effectively changing the population of insects.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 23, 2025, 1:36 PM

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: A Primer in Causal In­fer­ence: An­i­mal Product Con­sump­tion as a Case Study

  Thanks for the great post, Jared and Maya!

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 21, 2025, 1:36 PM

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: How should we adapt an­i­mal ad­vo­cacy to near-term AGI?

  Hi Max,

  Have you considered pitching Ambitious Impact on running a research round with the goal of finding the best interventions leveraging AI to help animals?

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 21, 2025, 9:09 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: EA Sur­vey 2022: Geography

  Thanks, Jamie and David. Will there be a similar post for the 2024 survey?

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 20, 2025, 1:24 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: idea21’s comment on: An In­tro­duc­tion to the Prob­lem of Authority

  Thanks for sharing!

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 20, 2025, 9:16 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: idea21’s comment on: An In­tro­duc­tion to the Prob­lem of Authority

  Thanks for the comment! Would you be happy to share the name of the book?

An In­tro­duc­tion to the Prob­lem of Authority

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 19, 2025, 1:11 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: MichaelDickens’s comment on: Don’t treat prob­a­bil­ities less than 0.5 as if they’re 0

  Thanks, Michael. I agree AI risk should not be dismissed without looking into how large it is. On the other hand, there is not an obvious relationship between existential risk, and the cost-effectiveness of decreasing it. The cost-effectiveness decreases as the risk increases because this decreases the value of the future, unless the risk is concentrated in a time of perils. In addition, a higher risk of human extinction does not necessarily imply a higher existential risk because some AI systems may well be sentient.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 17, 2025, 8:00 PM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Pat Myron 🔸’s comment on: Break-even anal­y­sis of D3, long-chain omega-3, and mul­ti­vi­tamin-mul­ti­min­eral supplementation

  I do not discuss B12 in the post. “I also plan to continue my D3 supplementation, as I worry the non-mortality benefits, which would decrease the break-even donations, may be significant”. Do you think there is evidence that not taking a multivitamin-multimineral or long-chain omega-3, which are the 2 supplements besides D3 I mention in the post, would cause anything close to sufficient damage to “impair sustaining any income”?

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 17, 2025, 4:09 PM

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Pat Myron 🔸’s comment on: Break-even anal­y­sis of D3, long-chain omega-3, and mul­ti­vi­tamin-mul­ti­min­eral supplementation

  Thanks, Pat. I have added the following to the summary (which was in the main text). “I did not cover benefits from increased future annual net income”.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 17, 2025, 11:19 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Daniela Waldhorn’s comment on: Re­think Pri­ori­ties An­i­mal Welfare Depart­ment: 2024 strat­egy up­date and 2025 goals

  Thanks for the great clarifications, Daniela!

  It is interesting RP’s work on wild animal welfare is not supported by unrestricted funds. It suggests the people at RP responsible for allocating the unrestricted funds think there is other work from RP which is more cost-effective at the margin. How are unrestricted funds allocated? I think it would be great for RP to be transparent about this considering donations become unrestricted funds by default.

  Will donations restricted to RP’s work on invertebrate welfare (including farmed, wild, and other invertebrates) also not go towards vertebrate welfare (including humans, and vertebrate animals)? Which fraction of the funds supporting invertebrate welfare are unrestricted? I asked these questions about wild animal welfare, but I am actually specially interested in invertebrate welfare.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 17, 2025, 8:51 AM

  13 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: ALLFED emer­gency ap­peal: Help us raise $800,000 to avoid cut­ting half of programs

  Thanks for all your efforts. I think donating to ALLFED saves human lives roughly as cost-effectively as GiveWell’s top charities^[1], so I would say it is a good opportunity for people supporting global health and development interventions^[2].

  1. ^

     I estimated policy advocacy to increase resilience to global catastrophic food shocks is 4.08 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.

  2. ^

     Although I believe the best animal welfare interventions are way more cost-effective, and I do not know whether saving human lives is beneficial or harmful accounting for effects on animals.

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 15, 2025, 2:30 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Laura Duffy’s comment on: Re­think Pri­ori­ties’ Welfare Range Estimates

  Thanks, Laura!

• Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 15, 2025, 2:27 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: William McAuliffe’s comment on: What hurts shrimp the most? (Quan­tify­ing and pri­ori­tiz­ing shrimp welfare threats)

  Thanks, William. I asked because such analysis would inform whether farmed insects have positive or negative lives^[1], which is relevant to know whether curbing the growth of the industry is beneficial or harmful.

  1. ^

     I estimate chicken welfare reforms almost make their lives positive.