“Animal advocates should campaign to restrict AI precision livestock farming” by Zachary Brown

This is a link post. Here's a fairly safe prediction: most of the potential harm from AI is potential harm to nonhuman animals. It's a safe[1] prediction because there are so many more nonhuman animals than there are humans. Many of these animals presently live in conditions where their lives are influenced or controlled by human activity. Since AI will increasingly substitute for human activity, many animals’ lives might therefore someday be controlled or influenced by AI. Indeed, while there are just over 8 billion people, there are around a zillion[2] animals farmed each year, the majority on factory farms, where their lives are nearly entirely determined by human choices. Factory farms, then, are an enormous and terrifying arena for AI-caused harm. Accordingly, when we talk about AI governance and risks from AI, risks to nonhuman animals should be a major part of that conversation, alongside e.g. biorisks and discrimination. [...] ---Outline:(02:11) ‘AI’ can mean a lot of different things(02:57) What is precision livestock farming?(03:47) What do we know about the particular technologies that are currently being implemented?(07:25) PLF is a bundle of many different technologies(08:48) Is precision livestock farming good for animals?(09:43) Per-animal effects are uncertain(09:55) Reasons for optimism(10:56) Reason for pessimism(12:18) Reasons for confusion(15:15) The per-animal upshot(15:33) PLF will likely increase the number of farmed animals(19:41) Welfare-effects, all things considered(20:09) An aside about the environmental effects of PLF(21:06) What should the animal advocacy movement do?(21:10) Promote positive uses of PLF?(22:14) Advocate for restricting the use of PLF on factory farms!(23:35) Why restrictions on PLF systems in factory farms might be feasible(24:39) 1. The particular composition of who has influence on AI policy(25:34) 2. Possible coalition with small farmers(26:19) 3. Background public support(27:45) 4. The financial costs of the policy occur in the future(28:35) Let's keep talking about AI and animalsThe original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: June 17th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BhAJu2fMAEj6ZeTw5/animal-advocates-should-campaign-to-restrict-ai-precision --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.