AI x Animal Welfare intersection
Info for all workshops: This is a recurring workshop, taking place every two weeks to give time for the 2-3 hours of reading needed for each session. You can read more about other workshops (and their benefits!) we offer here.
This event is only a suggested time and location, by registering you are simply indicating your interest in the workshops! You'll be able to customise the time and location in the signup form we'll advertise.
🍕 Snacks included
🖥️ Free virtual desk space to work/study with your friends (+hopefully this group's attendees!)
🤖 You'll learn to use Notebook LLM to automatically create slides, flashcards, Q&A and even a podcast episode out of readings (useful for studies & work) in one click. You might be able to get away with only 1h of prep for each session... 🫣
>>> AI x Animal Welfare intersection (AIxAnimals) <<<
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Curriculum curated by paid Sentient Futures specialists on the topic (see the outline lower down 🔽)
AI×Animals is an 8-week course preparing learners for impactful careers at the frontier of AI & animals. Fellows will engage with high-stakes issues such as precision livestock farming, the use of machine learning to "decode" animal communication, and the intersection between animal advocacy and AI risks [this is our focus!]. This program will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and connections to steer either AI development towards animal-positive outcomes, and/or animal advocacy towards the society AI will bring about.
Curriculum:
Week topic (8 sessions)
Week 1
Welcome and Fellowship Intro
Introducing a framework for animal advocacy centered on sentience, arguing that by quantifying and comparing welfare across different species, we can make more strategic decisions about how to most effectively reduce suffering.
Week 2
AI×Animals: The Present and Near Future
AI benefits: How might current and emerging AI technologies lead to significant improvements in animal welfare?
AI risks: How might the very same technologies lead to massive suffering and increased exploitation of animals
Week 3
Precision Livestock Farming
Precision livestock farming: systems which track many aspects of farmed animals’ health, such as feed consumption, weight, lameness, and disease prevalence.
Will this usher in a new era of welfare transparency across animal agriculture (“precision welfare”), or are we witnessing the takeoff of never-before-seen levels of fully automated animal exploitation?
Week 4
Interspecies Communication
Machine learning is driving rapid progress in “decoding” animal communication – with the potential to radically transform our relationships towards animals.
How might our world change if breakthroughs allowed us to understand animals on their own terms? Are there limits to how much we can understand one another? And perhaps most importantly: Are we ready to listen?
Week 5
The Genetic Welfare Frontier
Which considerations might favour genetic interventions to improve welfare over non-genetic strategies (e.g. improving factory farming conditions; food system transformation)?
Week 6
AI×Animals: The Long-Term Future
In this session, we will examine the implications of longtermism for animal advocacy, including how lock-in scenarios limit future pathways, uncertainty about the outcomes of our actions over increasingly long timescales, backfire risks, and a potential strategic reorientation: towards the welfare of wild animals.
Week 7
Animal Advocacy in the Age of Transformative AI
The emergence of Transformative Artificial Intelligence (TAI) may fundamentally change the world as we know it – perhaps even sooner than you think. Imagine 100 years of scientific and technological progress, coupled with explosive economic growth – all in the span of 10 years.
Which existing advocacy strategies (e.g. consumer boycotts, legislation) are least likely to be effective across different post-TAI scenarios?
Week 8
Taking Action: Projects and Career Planning
Which specific challenges at the AI×Animals frontier are currently the most important, tractable, and neglected?
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For what it's worth, one of us organisers has founded an association and the other has been leading a research group. We've both hosted multiple workshops like this before!
Looking forward to meeting you 😊
Alexis and Max
Code of conduct
Contact us : [email protected]
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Benefits of taking part
People have often gone into highly impactful roles or founded new orgs after completing these fellowships. E.g. AI: Google DeepMind (Neel Nanda), Anthropic (Adam Jones); Pandemics: CDC (Scott Olesen)… And here in Geneva, Chiara is Exec. Director of Talos and Fabien Truffier created an animal welfare org.
The readings also include broader resources and varied modalities for engaging in the topic. There are for example optional role-playing, type weeks (similar to model UN): practice how world experts simulated coordinated responses to a pandemic (this was a personal favourite week for me). Seeing how leaders respond in such a simulation, and may in fact be somewhat clueless, gives the most insight possible into pandemic preparedness in this case. There is such a role-play for AI takeover scenarios too. There are also job boards, and most importantly perhaps, research agendas which you can steal coursework/thesis/work or thesis ideas from. Related to this, as learning becomes more action-oriented, an “intervision”-style format is extremely useful: here, each person presents a puzzle they have and the group works through it for 10min (puzzles go from meta “should animal rights or welfare be prioritised” to concrete “which project should I choose?”). Something about a person getting unconditional 10min of attention really helps personal progress, makes for bonding and - sometimes - that person’s day! (an effect close to therapy?).
Aside from the resources- perhaps even more important- the serendipity which comes from each attendee's different background can be huge. Some will be very engaged already in the topic, maybe even working for an organisation with open positions, others might open your eyes to new ways of entering the field (e.g. a drama student using storytelling for science communication?).
Last but not least, most of these topical dives have existing communities of equally passionate people (“alumni/ fellows”). By completing a (or mutiple) curricula-um, you can be put into the Slack communities which have up to 6,000+ members on them. Most concretely, there is often a channel where job/volunteering/internship opportunities are posted (34 in a week from what I've counted). This is where I found my current job, and where I effortlessly gathered a further team of 24 people (it was even easier for them to join me)!
Also, not to mention the social aspect: with previous groups we had regular dinners outside of the reading sessions (which led to climbing and other stuff). I know few people who've just done one of these reading groups! (I’ve done five, of which I facilitated three, and am currently doing one. More info about us organisers at the bottom).