The Nonlinear Library EA - Bringing about animal-inclusive AI by Max Taylor
Dec 18, 2023
32:00
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Bringing about animal-inclusive AI, published by Max Taylor on December 18, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
I've been working in animal advocacy for two years and have an amateur interest in AI. All corrections, points of disagreement, and other constructive feedback are very welcome. I'm writing this in a personal capacity, and am not representing the views of my employer.
Many thanks to everyone who provided feedback and ideas.
Introduction
In a
previous post, I set out some of the positive and negative impacts that AI could have on animals. The present post sets out a few ideas for what an animal-inclusive AI landscape might look like: what efforts would we need to see from different actors in order for AI to be beneficial for animals? This is just a list of high-level suggestions, and I haven't tried to prioritize them, explore them in detail, or suggest practical ways to bring them about. I also haven't touched on the (
potentially extremely significant) role of alternative proteins in all this.
We also have a new landing page for people interested in the intersection of AI and animals:
www.aiforanimals.org. It's still fairly basic at this stage but contains links to resources and recent news articles that you might find helpful if you're interested in this space. Please feel free to provide feedback to help make this a more useful resource.
Why do we need animal-inclusive AI?
As described in the
previous post, future AI advances could further disempower animals and increase the depth and scale of their suffering. However, AI could also help bring about a radical improvement in human-animal relations and greatly facilitate efforts to improve animals' wellbeing.
For example, just in the last month, news articles have covered potential AI risks for animals including
AI's role in intensive shrimp farming, the
EU-funded 'RoBUTCHER' that will help automate the pig meat processing industry, (potentially
making intensive animal agriculture more profitable), and the potential of Large Language Models to
entrench speciesist biases. On the more positive side, there were also articles covering the potential for AI to
radically improve animal health treatment,
support the expansion of alternative protein companies,
reduce human-animal conflicts,
facilitate human-animal communication, and
provide alternatives to animal testing. These recent stories are just the tip of the iceberg, not only for animals that are being directly exploited - or cared for - by humans, but also for those living in the wild.
AI safety for animals doesn't need to come at the expense of AI safety for humans. There are bound to be many actions that both the animal advocacy and AI safety communities can take to reinforce each others' work, given the considerable overlap in our priorities and worldviews. However, there are also bound to be some complex trade-offs, and we can't assume that efforts to make AI safe for humans will inevitably also benefit all other species.
economic growth and
advances in healthcare) while being a disaster for other animals. Targeted efforts are needed to prevent that happening, including (but definitely not limited to):
Explicitly mentioning animals in written commitments, both non-binding and binding;
Using those commitments as a stepping stone to ensure animal-inclusive applications of AI;
Representing animals in decision-making processes;
Conducting and publishing more research on AI's potential impacts on animals; and
Building up the 'AI safety x animal advocacy' community.
The rest of this post provides some information, examples, and resources around those topics.
Moving towards animal-inclusive AI
Explicitly mention animals in non-binding commitments
Governmental commitments
On November 1, 2023, 29 countries signed the
Bletchley Declaration at the AI Safety Su...
I've been working in animal advocacy for two years and have an amateur interest in AI. All corrections, points of disagreement, and other constructive feedback are very welcome. I'm writing this in a personal capacity, and am not representing the views of my employer.
Many thanks to everyone who provided feedback and ideas.
Introduction
In a
previous post, I set out some of the positive and negative impacts that AI could have on animals. The present post sets out a few ideas for what an animal-inclusive AI landscape might look like: what efforts would we need to see from different actors in order for AI to be beneficial for animals? This is just a list of high-level suggestions, and I haven't tried to prioritize them, explore them in detail, or suggest practical ways to bring them about. I also haven't touched on the (
potentially extremely significant) role of alternative proteins in all this.
We also have a new landing page for people interested in the intersection of AI and animals:
www.aiforanimals.org. It's still fairly basic at this stage but contains links to resources and recent news articles that you might find helpful if you're interested in this space. Please feel free to provide feedback to help make this a more useful resource.
Why do we need animal-inclusive AI?
As described in the
previous post, future AI advances could further disempower animals and increase the depth and scale of their suffering. However, AI could also help bring about a radical improvement in human-animal relations and greatly facilitate efforts to improve animals' wellbeing.
For example, just in the last month, news articles have covered potential AI risks for animals including
AI's role in intensive shrimp farming, the
EU-funded 'RoBUTCHER' that will help automate the pig meat processing industry, (potentially
making intensive animal agriculture more profitable), and the potential of Large Language Models to
entrench speciesist biases. On the more positive side, there were also articles covering the potential for AI to
radically improve animal health treatment,
support the expansion of alternative protein companies,
reduce human-animal conflicts,
facilitate human-animal communication, and
provide alternatives to animal testing. These recent stories are just the tip of the iceberg, not only for animals that are being directly exploited - or cared for - by humans, but also for those living in the wild.
AI safety for animals doesn't need to come at the expense of AI safety for humans. There are bound to be many actions that both the animal advocacy and AI safety communities can take to reinforce each others' work, given the considerable overlap in our priorities and worldviews. However, there are also bound to be some complex trade-offs, and we can't assume that efforts to make AI safe for humans will inevitably also benefit all other species.
economic growth and
advances in healthcare) while being a disaster for other animals. Targeted efforts are needed to prevent that happening, including (but definitely not limited to):
Explicitly mentioning animals in written commitments, both non-binding and binding;
Using those commitments as a stepping stone to ensure animal-inclusive applications of AI;
Representing animals in decision-making processes;
Conducting and publishing more research on AI's potential impacts on animals; and
Building up the 'AI safety x animal advocacy' community.
The rest of this post provides some information, examples, and resources around those topics.
Moving towards animal-inclusive AI
Explicitly mention animals in non-binding commitments
Governmental commitments
On November 1, 2023, 29 countries signed the
Bletchley Declaration at the AI Safety Su...