The Sentience Institute Podcast

I think we forget sometimes because we look at Impossible, we look at Beyond, that they’re the tip of the spear, but there’s so much work and so much opportunity out there... We need to get to all the categories... Seafood in general is very, very underserved. And so getting access to amazing talented entrepreneurs who are going to focus on seafood... there’s a huge opportunity there, because that is such a level of high need. And there’s other categories like that, but I think... cheap, plant-based replacements specifically is an area of opportunity, and seafood is as well. There’s focus on burgers and hot dogs and products like that, especially in beef, and not enough focus yet on many of the other species that we need to get to.
- Lisa Feria

Investing in animal-free food technology startups offers opportunities to disrupt animal agriculture while making a profit. But is high counterfactual impact not irreconcilable with good returns on investment? And what kinds of entrepreneurs and companies seem most promising?

Lisa Feria is the CEO of Stray Dog Capital, a group that invests in high-tech plant-based food and cellular agriculture startups. She also helped to found GlassWall Syndicate, a group of investors who collaborate to support animal-free food technology startups.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• How Stray Dog Capital evaluates which companies are likely to deliver good returns on investment and the skills that entrepreneurs need to succeed (2:25)
• How companies can make high-quality projections and estimates about their chances of success and expected market share (19:45)
• How Stray Dog Capital evaluates the impact of companies and how this affects their investments (24:35)
• Why Beyond Meat was such a success story for its investors and why IPOs (initial public offerings) are the “gold standard” for maximising return on investment (30:55)
• Why Stray Dog Capital focuses on early stage investments, how crowded the space of impact investing in animal-free food tech is, and the counterfactual impact of investments (33:35)
• The trade-off between counterfactual impact and return on investment (55:05)
• Why Lisa is optimistic about continued growth and opportunities for animal-free food technology (1:02:22)
• How Stray Dog Capital collaborates with other investors through GlassWall Syndicate (1:05:48)
• The markets and geographies that Stray Dog Capital is most interested in, and the importance of pre-existing demand for animal-free foods (1:07:54)
• Broad vs. animal focus in terms of the impact and strategy of startups (1:12:10)
• The expected impact (and challenges) of cellular agriculture / cultured meat companies compared to plant-based companies (1:16:27)
• Projected timelines for when cellular agriculture products will become cost-competitive with conventional animal products, and how investors deal with this uncertainty (1:24:15)
• Why more animal-free food tech entrepreneurs should focus on neglected product categories like seafood and chicken replacements (1:28:45)
• Career preparation for working at impact investment groups and as entrepreneurs at animal-free food tech startups (1:36:58)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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I think within five years, we will absolutely see... the first nonhuman animals recognized as holders of rights in the US; ‘persons’... [I don’t think] the gates [would be] flung open if we start to see one or two species recognized as having rights... I don’t see this at all as a linear path. We file the cases that we do and the work that we do and hope to achieve discrete outcomes, but we’re also very mindful of the fact that other judges [cite] us in cases that we don’t file... We’ve seen more and more judges citing our cases approvingly to say, ‘look, the relationship between humans and animals is changing; we need to take their interests more seriously’
- Kevin Schneider

The Nonhuman Rights Project has litigated in US courts for four chimpanzees and four elephants. But can litigation for a small number of animals drive a wider expansion of the moral circle? What are the risks of this approach? How can animal advocates maximize the chances of positive impact for animals while pursuing this strategy?

Since 2015, Kevin Schneider has been the executive director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, previously having worked in private legal practice.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• The NhRP’s plans for legislative campaigns (5:05)
• Whether litigation should focus on farmed animals or chimpanzees and elephants (13:28)
• How legal change interacts with public opinion and wider social change (29:00)
• The insights from forthcoming public polling supported by the NhRP on rights for particular species, and the implications of this (37:28)
• The decisions made by the NhRP in selecting particular states and legal strategies to focus on (46:49)
• How litigating for legal personhood for animals compares to enforcing and expanding the scope of existing legal protections for animals (1:00:30)
• What the NhRP has learned from its study of historical social movements and the risks of using this sort of evidence (1:08:03)
• The NhRP’s priorities for media coverage (1:13:08)
• How the NhRP interacts with advocates in other countries (1:32:08)
• Why the NhRP is not greatly constrained by either funding or by a lack of talented applicants to their job roles (1:42:33)
• How current legal professionals might (or might not) be able to help the NhRP (1:47:04)
• Why Kevin doesn’t believe that there is much scope for new organizations to do similar work to the NhRP elsewhere in the US (1:51:00)
• How someone could best prepare to be an excellent candidate for a role at the NhRP and how Kevin’s own career experiences have affected his work (1:59:12)
• Which professional legal experience might be most useful for animal advocates (2:04:40)

Resources discussed in the episode:

Resources by or about the NhRP:

• The NhRP’s article in the Syracuse Law Review on home rule
• Steven Wise of the NhRP’s book, Rattling the Cage
• The litigation cases of the NhRP
• Animal Charity Evaluators’ review of the NhRP
• Steven Wise of the NhRP’s book, Steven Wise, Though the Heavens May Fall, on the 1772 Somerset v. Stewart case
• The documentary on the NhRP’s work, Unlocking the Cage

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“There’s a relatively clear path on dramatically reducing the costs of the cell culture media. So I’d say it's definitely the most pressing bottleneck... not perhaps the most technically involved bottleneck... The recombinant proteins are by far the driving source of those cost contributions where probably anywhere from over 90 to 95% or more of the cost contribution of cell culture media today comes from those recombinant proteins. An independent group at Northwestern University in Chicago came out with a paper this past year... they were able to drop that cost of the media to around 11 dollars per liter... that was a 97% cost reduction in media that this group basically did for fun just to demonstrate that it can be done.”
- Elliot Swartz

Animal-free food technologies, such as new plant-based foods that accurately mimic animal products and cultured meat (meat cultured from animal cells without requiring the slaughter of any animals) have the potential to dramatically displace the consumption of conventional animal products. But what are the bottlenecks in the way of successfully scaling up and reducing the costs of these products? And how can these bottlenecks be overcome?

Dr Elliot Swartz is a senior scientist at The Good Food Institute and the author of a number of in-depth resources on cultured meat. He has previously worked as a consultant in the biotech industry.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• The different stem cell-types that can be used to develop cultured meat, what work still needs to be done in this area, and how it can be done (5:26)
• Cell culture media as the most pressing bottleneck, and the clear path towards addressing this (19:06)
• Scaling up bioprocessing and bioreactors (39:55)
• Scaffold biomaterials as a fourth technical bottleneck (49:43)
• The technical bottlenecks in the way of the improvement and scale-up of highly meat-like plant-based meats and the career paths that are relevant to this area (58:41)
• How Elliot started to get involved in the animal-free food tech space and the similar opportunities that might exist for others to enter the space by synthesizing existing research (1:09:30)
• The lack of funding for research in the space and how this compares to the availability of talent as a bottleneck towards further progress (1:19:39)
• The pros and cons (beyond funding) of seeking technical research opportunities in academic vs. for-profit environments (1:30:09)
• To what extent medical advances in tissue engineering and related areas will drive progress on cultured meat (1:41:19)
• The importance of and opportunities for startups to operate a business-to-business model in the animal-free food technology space (1:45:52)
• When will cultured meat and highly meat-like plant-based meat products become competitive with conventional products in terms of cost and taste? (1:49:02)
• Should the proponents of animal-free food be prioritizing cultured meat or plant-based meat? (1:56:02)
• The skills and characteristics that would make someone an excellent researcher in the cultured and high-tech plant-based meat space (1:58:50)
• The transferability of career capital between academia, startups, and nonprofits and between research into high-tech plant-based meats and cultured meat (2:04:18)
• Concrete opportunities for getting work in this space (2:07:46)
• Which forms of academic and professional expertise are most urgently needed for the development of animal-free food technologies (2:13:43)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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And for an applied ethics perspective, I think the most important thing is if we want to minimize suffering in the world, and if we want to minimize animal suffering, we should always, err on the side of caution, we should always be on the safe side.

• Thomas Metzinger

Should we advocate for a moratorium on the development of artificial sentience? What might that look like, and what would be the challenges?
Thomas Metzinger was a full professor of theoretical philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz until 2022, and is now a professor emeritus. Before that, he was the president of the German cognitive science society from 2005 to 2007, president of the association for the scientific study of consciousness from 2009 to 2011, and an adjunct fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for advanced studies since 2011. He is also a co-founder of the German Effective Altruism Foundation, president of the Barbara Wengeler Foundation, and on the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. In 2009, he published a popular book, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, which addresses a wider audience and discusses the ethical, cultural, and social consequences of consciousness research. From 2018 to 2020 Metzinger worked as a member of the European Commission's high level expert group on artificial intelligence.
Topics discussed in the episode:

• 0:00 introduction
• 2:12 Defining consciousness and sentience
• 9:55 What features might a sentient artificial intelligence have?
• 17:11 Moratorium on artificial sentience development
• 37:46 Case for a moratorium
• 49:30 What would a moratorium look like?
• 53:07 Social hallucination problem
• 55:49 Incentives of politicians
• 1:01:51 Incentives of tech companies
• 1:07:18 Local vs global moratoriums
• 1:11:52 Repealing the moratorium
• 1:16:01 Information hazards
• 1:22:21 Trends in thinking on artificial sentience over time
• 1:39:38 What are the open problems in this field, and how might someone work on them with their career?

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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Since about 75% or so (and that’s just a rough estimate)... of plant-based products on the market today are actually made on off-the-shelf meat processing equipment, we’re looking to actually change that part of the industry by actually designing new production equipment that is appropriate for the production of plant-based meat... By creating new production methods and new equipment at Rebellyous, we can bring down the cost of plant-based meat, increase the quality, and increase the volume of our products to well beyond what it is currently, [just] 0.2% of the meat industry.
- Christie Lagally

Many advocates hope that conventional animal products will eventually be entirely replaced by animal-free foods. But what are the challenges in the way of achieving this goal? What role can entrepreneurs play in encouraging change?

Christie Lagally is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Rebellyous Foods, a company that is working to produce high-quality plant-based chicken nuggets in large quantities. She previously worked for 15 years in mechanical engineering and has also worked with the Good Food Institute and volunteered for the Humane Society of the United States.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• Why and how Rebellyous Foods focuses on developing better tools for scaling the production of plant-based products (2:02)
• The specific equipment types and processes that the plant-based food industry currently relies on that need to be replaced (7:34)
• The uses and limitations of extruders (16:45)
• Who designs, produces, and sells the equipment that is used in plant-based products (19:02)
• The technical difficulties in producing plant-based chicken products compared to plant-based burgers (24:52)
• Developing plant-based fish products (33:14)
• Business to business vs. business to consumer strategies (36:43)
• The importance of branding in marketing animal-free food tech products (41:00)
• The use of engineering experience in developing plant-based foods (43:07)
• The importance of mission alignment in working in animal-free food technology startups (50:23)
• The transferability of experience in nonprofits to work in animal-free food technology companies (52:28)
• Christie’s experience with political actions for animals and views on the interaction between animal advocacy nonprofits and the animal-free food technology movement (56:45)
• The investment and support that Rebellyous Foods has received and the role of impact investment (1:04:48)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

Support the show