An AI that is to us as we are to other species does not go well for us. It needs to have better values!

Yes, definitely in favor of more pro-animal politics! I think there are a lot of high impact things the movement can be doing. It's worth focusing on the ones we know, and researching new avenues and theories of change too. 

Thanks for bringing this up and going in-depth on the evidence. I've always felt uneasy with the cage free campaigns and shrimp stunning. 

Part of that is definitely my more "abolitionist" viewpoint. I hear about those and think "wait how much money are we putting towards exploiting animals in a bit less bad way?" Of course an improvement is an improvement so if they are actually better then that is better, and there is benefit to getting momentum. It's easier to take a mile once you've gotten an inch, so to speak. But if we don't even actually know if the increment we're pushing is better, that's a problem that deserves to have alarm bells sounding.

That said, I don't really know what would be better tactically. Lately I'm pretty AI-pilled, thinking that if we can make AGI aligned with all sentient beings then that will be a huge benefit. But today's labs aren't gonna release a model that only ever suggests vegan recipes, and the future of AI is highly speculative. 

Sometimes I wonder if we should just start doing door-to-door vegan advocacy, like the jehovahs witnesses and normy politics and deep canvassing (and street epistemology and "smart politics" https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D2GrrrrfipHWPJSHh/book-review-how-minds-change ).

Great article, very well said! 

I would especially emphasize the human/non-human dynamics. In a sense, we are the TAI of the animal kingdom, and the results have been disastrous for every species we happened to decide to factory farm. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you comes to mind. 

Also, for a more artistic and entertaining take on the veil of ignorance, check out https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/being-john-rawls

Case in point: this comment thread https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/B6d8Wzk4gNzHsXvdi/ai-safety-is-extremely-bottlenecked-on-grantmakers?commentId=KFBL4pezAbYLcWzTE

To expand, posts like these give me https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/someone-who-is-good-at-the-economy-please-help-me vibes. 

"Someone who is good at finding grantmakers please help, life on my planet might get wiped out if we don't fund saving it" 

"Hire people who are maybe not quite as elite-of-the-elite-tier talent as you hoped, since they can still do a ton of good"

"no"

when a strong candidate turns down a CG offer, the result is often not “a slightly-less-good grantmaker," it’s just one fewer grantmaker. We routinely close rounds with fewer hires than we'd planned for.

Have you considered leaving rounds open longer and/or hiring slightly-less-good grantmakers instead of closing the round?

Very well said, it's so sad what happens to so many animals and like you said the list goes on and on. And the funny thing is, we are animals. If AI goes well for animals, that implies it goes well for us. 

But we really don't want speciesist AI. If we have AI that has a moral circle based on species membership, or based on certain capabilities like intelligence, what happens when it gets to the point where we are no longer intelligent enough to qualify, or the only species that's morally relevant is the AI species?

For what it's worth, I'm surprised that people who think abortion is murder aren't doing more illegal stuff to destroy clinics. 

Also for what it's worth, I think factory farming is so bad that it's by far the greatest injustice caused by humans in history. Justifiable wars have been fought for orders of magnitude less important things. 

If factory farming ends, animal products will be prohibitively expensive for most people, so you'll end up mostly vegan anyways. Why not start now?