I think the simplest answer is not that such a world would be terrible (except for factory farming and wild animal welfare, which are major concerns), but that a world with all these transhumanist initiatives would be much better

The universe can probably support a lot more sentient life if we convert everything that we can into computronium (optimized computing substrate) and use it to run digital/artificial/simulated lives, instead of just colonizing the universe with biological humans. To conclude that such a future doesn't have much more potential value than your 2010 world, we would have to assign zero value to such non-biological lives, or value each of them much less than a biological human, or make other very questionable assumptions. The Newberry 2021 paper that Vasco Grilo linked to has a section about about this:

If a significant fraction of humanity’s morally-relevant successors were instantiated digitally, rather than biologically, this would have truly staggering implications for the expected size of the future. As noted earlier, Bostrom (2014) estimates that 10^35 human lives could be created over the entire future, given known physical limits, and that 10^58 human lives could be created if we allow for the possibility of digital persons. While these figures were not intended to indicate a simple scaling law 31, they do imply that digital persons can in principle be far, far more resource efficient than biological life. Bostrom’s estimate of the number of digital lives is also conservative, in that it assumes all such lives will be emulations of human minds; it is by no means clear that whole-brain emulation represents the upper limit of what could be achieved. For a simple example, one can readily imagine digital persons that are similar to whole-brain emulations, but engineered so as to minimise waste energy, thereby increasing resource efficiency.

I think dying is bad. 

Also, I'm not sure why "no life extension" and "no AGI" have to be linked. We could do life extension without AGI, it'd just be harder.

The number of non-human animals being tortured is one reason. But that doesn't (yet) justify accelerating AGI.

I was surprised to see the comments on this post, which mostly provide arguments in favor of pursuing technological progress, even if this might lead to a higher risk of catastrophes. 

I would like to chip in the following: 

Preferences regarding the human condition are largely irrelevant for technological progress in the areas that you mention. Technological progress is driven by a large number of individuals that seek prestige and money.  There is simply consumer demand for AI and technologies which may alter the human condition. Thus, technological progress happens, irrespective of whether this is considered good or bad.

Further reading: 

The philosophical debate you are referring to is sometimes discussed as the scenario "1972", e.g. in Max Tegmarks "Life 3.0". He also provides reasons to believe that this scenario is not satisfying, given better alternatives.

Great question which merits more discussion. I'm sure there is an interesting argument to be made about how we should settle for "good enough" if it helps us avoid extinction risks.

One argument for continued technological progress is that our current civilization is not particularly stable or sustainable. One of the lessons from history is that seemingly stable empires such as the Roman or Chinese empires eventually collapse after a few hundred years. If there isn't more technological progress so that our civilization reaches a stable and sustainable state, I think our current civilization will eventually collapse because of climate change, nuclear war resource exhaustion, political extremism, or some other cause.

Nuclear war is inevitable in the scale of decades to centuries (see this: one and two).

I think a strong argument would be the use of AI to eliminate large sectors of work in society, and therefore have UBI or a similar system. I don't see how this is possible using  2010 or even 2024's AI technology. Furthermore, by allowing humans to have more free time and increased QALYs (from say, AI-related medical advances), people may become more sensitive to animal welfare concerns. Even without the second part of the argument, I think removing people from having to work, especially in agriculture/manual labor/sweatshops/cashiers etc., perhaps is a compelling reason to advocate against your proposal.

If anyone has any specific recommendations of works on this topic, do let me know!

Thank you for writing this up Hayven! I think there are multiple reasons as to why it will be very difficult for humans to settle for less. Primarily, I suspect this to be the case because a large part of our human nature is to strive for maximizing resources, and wanting to consistently improve the conditions of life. There are clear evolutionary advantages to have this ingrained into a species. This tendency to want to have more got us out of picking berries and hunting mammoths to living in houses with heating, being able to connect with our loved ones via video calls and benefiting from better healthcare. In other words, I don't think that the human condition was different in 2010, it was pretty much exactly the same as it is now, just as it was 20 000 years ago. "Bigger, better, faster."

The combination out of this human tendency, combined with our short-sightedness is a perfect recipe for human extinction. If we want to overcome the Great Filter, I think the only realistic way we will accomplish this is by figuring out how we can combine this desire for more with more wisdom and better coordination. It seems to be that we are far from that point, unfortunately. 

A key takeaway for me is the increased likelihood of success with interventions that guide, rather than restrict, human consumption and development. These strategies seem more feasible as they align with, rather than oppose, human tendencies towards growth and improvement. That does not mean that they should be favoured though, only that they will be more likely to succeed. I would be glad to get pushback here.

I can highly recommend the book The Molecule of More to read more about this perspective (especially Chapter 6).