EA Forum Debates Impact of AGI on Animal Welfare in Special Week
The Effective Altruism Forum hosted a debate week on how transformative AI could affect animals, featuring posts on cross-species robustness, wild animal welfare under AGI, and concrete advocacy ideas. Contributors warned that AI alignment work may not automatically benefit animals and called for targeted efforts.
What does an aligned artificial general intelligence (AGI) mean for animals? Animals are often overlooked, even among those who take transformative AI seriously. That’s why the EA Forum spent a week discussing the question earlier this year. Below, we share three picks from the week: considering fa
1️⃣ "AI Safety and Cross-Species Robustness: A brief critical review" Jim Buhler argues that reducing existential risk from AI isn't necessarily good for animals: saving humans means the preservation of animal farming, and the case for outweighing this reality elsewhere is weaker than it looks. htt
2️⃣ "If AGI goes well for humans, will it go well for (wild) animals?" Most animals live in the wild, so it’s worth considering whether a human-aligned AGI will improve their lives. Simon Eckerström Liedholm puts the probability at around 30%, warning that current alignment work could bake in indiff
3️⃣ "List of ideas for improving animal welfare in light of transformative AI" Michael Dickens lays out 11 concrete ways animal advocates can make a difference for animals in light of transformative AI — placing advocacy to pause AI at the top. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/d3gaMea82DWC
Browse all 18 posts from the week: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/agi-and-animals-debate-week