All of Max Harris's Comments + Replies

Thanks! I set up a DAF with Founders Pledge (which is available to all Pledgers subject to a minimum £10,000 initial deposit) - it's a screenshot from their internal granting tool.

Sorry for being late on the ideas! I posted one on another reply to Charles, here's another one: It is possible to get CCTV footages and then label what behavior of factory farm slaughter house workers count as cruelty/improper/not standard abiding. I think this way we can train an algorithm to constantly monitor whether works are at least treating animals with minimal decency.   See also this post.

It's really impressive you changed your mind so quickly. I don't want to jump on discussions, and answering this fully is hard, but you did write you were stopping entirely, so I'm writing the below quickly in support. It's unlikely that promising, thoughtful work by EAs are going to be harmful/be captured/enhance  harm by factory farming, and it's likely a net positive. 1. The grand parent comment dramatically understates how much the industry actively works on/crowds out related profit maximizing research. Basically, in the same way that the ITN framework works, this reduces the risk that even talented animal welfare EAs, working on the most successful project would significantly help the industry exploit more animals. 1. There's not just one, but multiple journals and subdisciplines on industrial farming of broilers and chickens. 2. I mean, go to this link, and keep clicking next, I'm on page 46 and there's  still articles. 1. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Coccidiosis+chicken&btnG= 2. 2. There's likely "wedges" where animal welfare, and increasing factory farming profit diverge.  1. One would be alleviating chronic suffering of malingering animals, who get slaughtered anyways and whose alleviation of suffering isn't cost effective will produce more meat. Because factory farms don't price in pain, it's possible that making chickens happier in many situations could have major welfare improvements, without changing farming incentives. 1. Point #1 above suggests why there would be a wedge, because profit seeking is extensive.   I think there's a big, giant thesis here about "welfarism", talking about theories of change that involve collaborating/working with some farmers. These projects have been done viably and successfully by many EAs in the past, but  I'm unsure anyone wants to read this right now, and I want to just write this comment quickly.