Quick takes

I'd love to see an 'Animal Welfare vs. AI Safety/Governance Debate Week' happening on the Forum. The risks from AI cause has grown massively in importance in recent years, and has become a priority career choice for many in the community. At the same time, the Animal Welfare vs Global Health Debate Week demonstrated just how important and neglected the cause of animal welfare remains. I know several people (including myself) who are uncertain/torn about whether to pursue careers focused on reducing animal suffering or mitigating existential risks related to AI. It would help to have rich discussions comparing both causes's current priorities and bottlenecks, and a debate week would hopefully expose some useful crucial considerations.

Applying my global health knowledge to the animal welfare realm, I'm requesting 1,000,000 dollars to launch this deep net positive (Shr)Impactful charity. I'll admit the funding opportunity is pretty marginal...   Thanks @Toby Tremlett🔹 for bringing this to life. Even though she doesn't look so happy I can assure you this intervention nets a 30x welfare range improvement for this shrimp, so she's now basically a human.

Has anybody changed their behaviour after the animal welfare vs global health debate week? A month or so on, I'm curious if anybody is planning to donate differently, considering a career pivot, etc. If anybody doesn't want to share publicly but would share privately, please feel free to message me. Linking @Angelina Li's post asking how people would change their behaviour, and tagging @Toby Tremlett🔹 who might have thought about tracking this.

During the animal welfare vs global health debate week, I was very reluctant to make a post or argument in favor of global health, the cause I work in and that animates me. Here are some reflections on why, that may or may not apply to other people: 1. Moral weights are tiresome to debate. If you (like me) do not have a good grasp of philosophy, it's an uphill struggle to grasp what RP's moral weights project means exactly, and where I would or would not buy into its assumptions. 2. I don't choose my donations/actions based on impartial cause prioritization. I think impartially within GHD (e.g. I don't prioritize interventions in India just because I'm from there, I treat health vs income moral weights much more analytically than species moral weights) but not for cross-cause comparison. I am okay with this. But it doesn't make for a persuasive case to other people. 3. It doesn't feel good to post something that you know will provoke a large volume of (friendly!) disagreement. I think of myself as a pretty disagreeable person, but I am still very averse to posting things that go against what almost everyone around me is saying, at least when I don't feel 100% confident in my thesis. I have found previous arguments about global health vs animal welfare to be especially exhausting and they did not lead to any convergence, so I don't see the upside that justifies the downside. 4. I don't fundamentally disagree with the narrow thesis that marginal money can do more good in animal welfare. I just feel disillusioned with the larger implications that global health is overfunded and not really worth the money we spend on it. I'm deliberately focusing on emotional/psychological inhibitions as opposed to analytical doubts I have about animal welfare. I do have some analytical doubts, but I think of them as secondary to the personal relationship I have with GHD.

NEW event today: How To Get The Media Interested In Your Animal Story! This one-hour workshop will cover how to reframe animal issues to get mainstream press attention. Today at 5pm CST. Organized in conjunction with the Hive team. Register for free here: https://lu.ma/pxrx1axl

I think people working on animal welfare have more incentives to post during debate week than people working on global health. The animal space feels (when you are in it) very funding constrained, especially compared to working in the global health and development space (and I expect gets a higher % of funding from EA / EA-adjacent sources). So along comes debate week and all the animal folk are very motivated to post and make their case and hopefully shift a few $. This could somewhat bias the balance of the debate. (Of course the fact that one side of the debate feels they needs funding so much more is in itself relevant to the debate.) 

New Webinar from Faunalytics: Bridging Conservative Values and Animal Advocacy Faunalytics' latest study — Bridging U.S. Conservative Values And Animal Protection — can help give advocates a framework for both working with conservative lawmakers to pass pro-animal laws, and in crafting pro-animal messages that will resonate with the conservative public. In this panel, we will explore how to apply these findings to your work! First, learn about the study and the research from Faunalytics. Then, listen to our two guests — Max Broad from DC Voters for Animals and Roland Halpern from Colorado Voters for Animals — as they discuss how these ideas can be applied in their own interventions. Finally, you'll have a chance to ask any questions you have about political identity and animal protection! This webinar is ideal for political advocates, legislative advocates, or anyone who works with individuals from across the political spectrum with any intervention. The study focused on U.S. conservatives, but the panel will likely be illuminating for understanding conservatives in other countries as well. Register here: Bridging Conservative Values and Animal Advocacy 

How does Animal Welfare/Global Health affect AI Safety? Very brief considerations. I think someone might build super strong AI in the next few years, and this could affect most of the value of the future. If true, I think it implies that the majority of any value from an intervention or cause area comes from how it affects whether AI goes well. Even if that's very slight and indirect. Relatedly, I think whether AI goes well depends on whether states will be able to coordinate. How do Animal Welfare interventions affect whether AI goes well?  – I think the Moral Circle expansion is relevant. – Helping reach climate targets seems relevant to help with international coordination. – But I think that Animal Welfare interventions place a cost on society such as by raising the price of food and increasing pressure on our governments in high-income countries. How do Global Health interventions affect whether AI goes well?  – I think that it reduces the pressure on governments in LMICs and gives them a safer society. This gives their Governments slightly more room to come to peaceful international agreements.  – But it may also enable more people to contribute to AI, whether that be AI capabilities development, chip manufacture (or AI safety/governance) Overall, I slightly lean towards global health being better. Perhaps RP's tools shed light on this. (I haven't checked!)