aaronhamlin's Quick takes

Why it’s important to fill out this consultation The UK Government is currently consulting on allowing insects to be fed to chickens and pigs. This is worrying as the government explicitly says changes would “enable investment in the insect protein sector”. Given the likely sentience of insects (see this summary of recent research), and that median predictions estimate that 3.9 trillion insects will be killed annually by 2030, we think it’s crucial to try to limit this huge source of animal suffering.  Overview * Link to complete the consultation: HERE. You can see the context of the consultation here. * How long it takes to fill it out: 5-10 minutes (5 questions total with only 1 of them requiring a written answer) * Deadline to respond: April 1st 2025 * What else you can do: Share the consultation document far and wide!  * You can use the UK Voters for Animals GPT to help draft your responses. * If you want to hear about other high-impact ways to use your political voice to help animals, sign up for the UK Voters for Animals newsletter. There is an option to be contacted only for very time-sensitive opportunities like this one, which we expect will happen less than 6 times a year. See guidance on submitting in a Google Doc Questions and suggested responses: It is helpful to have a lot of variation between responses. As such, please feel free to add your own reasoning for your responses or, in addition to animal welfare reasons for opposing insects as feed, include non-animal welfare reasons e.g., health implications, concerns about farming intensification, or the climate implications of using insects for feed.    Question 7 on the consultation: Do you agree with allowing poultry processed animal protein in porcine feed?  Suggested response: No (up to you if you want to elaborate further).  We think it’s useful to say no to all questions in the consultation, particularly as changing these rules means that meat producers can make more profit from sel

I'm writing this in my personal capacity as someone who recently began working at the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism—my colleagues might see things differently and haven’t reviewed this post.  The rapid development of artificial intelligence could prove to be one of the most consequential technological transitions in human history. As we approach what may be a critical period in AI development, we face urgent questions about governance, safety standards, and the concentration of power in AI development. Yet many in the general public are not aware of the speed of AI development, nor the implications powerful AI models could have for them or society at large. Society’s capacity to carefully examine and publicly debate AI issues lags far behind their importance.  This post makes the case for why journalism on AI is an important yet neglected path to remedy this situation. AI journalism has a lot of potential I see a variety of ways that AI journalism can helpfully steer AI development.  Journalists can scrutinize proposed regulations and safety standards, helping improve policies by informing relevant actors of potential issues or oversights. * Example article: Euractiv’s detailed coverage of the EU AI Act negotiations helped policymakers understand the importance of not excluding general-purpose models from the act, which may have played a key role in shaping the final text.[1] * Example future opportunity: As individual US states draft AI regulations in 2025, careful analysis of proposed bills could help prevent harmful loopholes or unintended consequences before they become law. Journalists can surface (or amplify) current and future risks, providing activation energy for policymakers and other actors to address these risks.  * Example article: 404 Media's investigation revealing an a16z-funded AI platform's generation of images that “could be categorized as child pornography” led a cloud computing provider to terminate its relationship with the platf

TL;DR: During a research stint at AIM the idea of a policy charity advocating for a ban or limitation of fish stocking in Canada was evaluated. Fish stocking is the practice of releasing cultured fish into natural water bodies to maintain or enhance fish populations. The idea was dropped as the probability of policy success was estimated to be merely 5% and the uncertainty is large, including doing harm with the intervention. These major uncertainties concerned key factors like fish suffering levels, re-catch rates of the stocked fish, and effects on wild populations, making it too risky to pursue. Epistemic status After researching this idea for about 100 hours, I am fairly certain that it is not worthwhile to pursue advocacy efforts against Salmon stocking in Canada. Do note that this is dependent on a bunch of subjective judgements, and one's risk appetite.  This research was done as part of the AIM Research Program, so keep that in mind. Whilst the findings were sense checked by the AIM research team, I have limited research experience of this type. Lastly, certain findings likely shift whenever different fish-species, fish stocking amounts and practises, geographical contexts or political contexts are considered[1]. This might also change the overall conclusion, i.e. it might be a worthwhile pursuit in other contexts Credits Attention to this intervention came via a country report from Animal Ask on potential effective interventions in Canada. Noteworthy progress on this topic from an animal welfare perspective was first made by Rethink Priorities in 2019. I would like to thank those authors for bringing this topic to the forefront in the way they did. I would like to thank Koen van Pelt and George Bridgewater for their feedback on an earlier draft of this post. Special appreciation to Vicky Cox for excellent guidance, mentorship and frequent back and forth during the research program. Mistakes are my own. Other introductory notes The majority of this pos