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!

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".

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.

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.

Thanks for the great post, Jared and Maya!

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?

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

Thanks for sharing!

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

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.