The footnote says that the money can be spent "over any time period", so I think this would allow for several years of more capacity buildup and research to spend this effectively. 

Given this precision, I think the claim should be close to something you agree on, if I understood correctly. 

Great point - it was flagged in the linked post, but I forgot to explicit that.

Regarding wild animals, it is so hard to estimate whether their lives are overall net negative (or positive) and to what extent, that I forgot to precise this huge caveat here. 
We still don't have good enough data, and there are large uncertainties (e.g. what is the impact of climate change if it makes siberia more habitable?)

But this could indeed change the overall sign of the impact of humanity (and there are some futures where we take better care of wild animals - which would be great).

But yeah, more solid data is needed on that topic. 

Understood, it makes sense.

Thanks for this post, which contains very telling information. I don't have much to add.

Regarding debate week, I saw on the forum's home page that you cast a vote for "neither agree nor disagree" to the claim that additional money would be better spent on animal welfare, but this seems to conflict with the tone of this post (I noticed this because there is only one vote like that and it didn't have a comment).
Is that voluntary?

Great ! The website looks very good

I'd be surprised if there isn't something in the order of at least a 100x to 1000x difference in cost-effectiveness in favour of animal interventions (as suggested here).

Animals are much more numerous, neglected, and have terrible living conditions, so there's simply much more to do. According to FarmKind, $100 donated to the Impact Fund can protect 124 chickens 🐥 from suffering, as well as 61 pigs 🐷, a cow 🐮, 22 fish 🐟, and more than 25 000 shrimps, 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦. Plus, it offsets ~6.7 tonnes of CO2 🌎. These kinds of numbers would be unthinkable for human-focused charities.

According to the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, a significant amount of evidence points to these animals being sentient (able to feel pain and pleasure). As indicated through research on the Moral Weight Project, it's hard to have a high confidence that their moral value and ability to suffer is much lower than that of humans. I would be extremely surprised that individuals with which we share billions of years of evolutionary history are less able to suffer. Why would evolution not implement a tool as useful as suffering in animals? 

I feel like the view that animals do not matter too much morally often does not come from a detailed research, but mostly stems from intuition. We have a natural tendency to prefer those that are more similar to us humans. This is normal and natural, and it feels good to help humans - however, it might not be the optimal choice. 

For instance, Farmkind estimates that less than 10% of the funds raised by effective giving organizations go to factory farming. Even in the context of strategy diversification, it’s weird to allocate such a small amount to trillions of individuals suffering today.

I think not taking enough animals into account is the strongest issue I see in EA - although it fares much better on this point than most other social movements. For instance, the positive expected value of working on longtermism relies on the assumption that the future will likely be positive for all beings. Few people, however, explicitly look into whether the future will be positive or negative for animals - many scenarios include the continuation of factory farming. Right now, if humans and farmed animals are considered together, total global welfare may be declining at increasing speed, and could already be well below zero.

However, EA is already one of the movements with the best track record in the world for helping animals - with thousands of people supporting impactful organisations, so I am confident it can go even further on that path. 

This is an interesting post, as it raises some relevant questions. I upvoted it. 

While it sounds instinctively better to save the humans, bringing about a more longterm frame puts this into perspective. 

I'm still a bit uncertain about the potential of acting on endangered species given the lack of quantitative data - which I agree are difficult to produce! 
Also, there is the important question of wild animal suffering - do the animals that are saved have good lives?

Personally, I'd be surprised if spending this money on either endangered species or human lives would be our best option to reduce suffering. In this case, I think charities fighting against factory farming have a much higher likelihood of reducing suffering. 

Moreover, charities acting for alternative proteins, such as The Good Food Institute, have an excellent track record of helping animals and reducing environmental impact - whether it is CO2 emissions or deforestation. In that context, I think this is one of our best options to act on both fronts. For instance, see this post by Vasco Grilo.

(Oh, by the way, some of the titles appear as plain text - so the format can probably be a bit changed here)

Thanks for the clear summary ! Good to know that Harari decided to write on this topic, his way of presenting things is often really engaging.

Is there a section on the impact of AI on animals ? This is a topic of great importance he probably cares about as well.

Very useful insight, thanks !

Great idea ! I really support this debate, I think it is a topic that is currently not taken into account enough.

I'd be surprised if there isn't something in the order of a 100x difference in cost effectiveness in favour of animals interventions (as indicated in some of the resources above).

Animals are much more numerous, neglected, and have terrible living conditions, so there's simply much more to do. And as indicated through research on the moral weight Project, it's hard to have a high confidence that their level of sentience is very low compared to humans.

We have a natural tendency to prefer humans (we know them well, after all), so a context in which we can challenge this assumption is welcome.