The Sentience Institute Podcast - Tobias Baumann of the Center for Reducing Suffering on moral circle expansion, cause prioritization, and reducing risks of astronomical suffering in the long-term future

Tobias Baumann of the Center for Reducing Suffering on moral circle expansion, cause prioritization, and reducing risks of astronomical suffering in the long-term future

06/23/21 • 78 min

“If some beings are excluded from moral consideration then the results are usually quite bad, as evidenced by many forms of both current and historical suffering... I would definitely say that those that don’t have any sort of political representation or power are at risk. That’s true for animals right now; it might be true for artificially sentient beings in the future... And yeah, I think that is a plausible priority. Another candidate would be to work on other broad factors to improve the future such as by trying to fix politics, which is obviously a very, very ambitious goal... [Another candidate would be] trying to shape transformative AI more directly. We’ve talked about the uncertainty there is regarding the development of artificial intelligence, but at least there’s a certain chance that people are right about this being a very crucial technology; and if so, shaping it in the right way is very important obviously.”

Tobias Baumann

Expanding humanity’s moral circle to include farmed animals and other sentient beings is a promising strategy for reducing the risk of astronomical suffering in the long-term future. But are there other causes that we could focus on that might be better? And should reducing future suffering actually be our goal?

Tobias Baumann is a co-founder of the Center for Reducing Suffering, a new longtermist research organisation focused on figuring out how we can best reduce severe suffering, taking into account all sentient beings.

Topics discussed in the episode:

Why moral circle expansion is a plausible priority for those of us focused on doing good (2:17)
Tobias’ view on why we should accept longtermism — the idea that the value of our actions is determined primarily by their impacts on the long-term future (5:50)
Are we living at the most important time in history? (14:15)
When, if ever, will transformative AI arrive? (20:35)
Assuming longtermism, should we prioritize focusing on risks of astronomical suffering in the long-term future (s-risks) or on maximizing the likelihood of positive outcomes? (27:00)
What sorts of future beings might be excluded from humanity’s moral circle in the future, and why might this happen? (37:45)
What are the main reasons to believe that moral circle expansion might not be a very promising way to have positive impacts on the long-term future? (41:40)
Should we focus on other forms of values spreading that might be broadly positive, rather than expanding humanity’s moral circle? (48:55)
Beyond values spreading, which other causes should people focused on reducing s-risks consider prioritizing (50:25)
Should we expend resources on moral circle expansion and other efforts to reduce s-risk now or just invest our money and resources in order to benefit from compound interest? (1:00:02)
If we decide to focus on moral circle expansion, should we focus on the current frontiers of the moral circle, such as farmed animals, or focus more directly on groups of future beings we are concerned about? (1:03:06)

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

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Tobias Baumann

Topics discussed in the episode:

Why moral circle expansion is a plausible priority for those of us focused on doing good (2:17)
Tobias’ view on why we should accept longtermism — the idea that the value of our actions is determined primarily by their impacts on the long-term future (5:50)
Are we living at the most important time in history? (14:15)
When, if ever, will transformative AI arrive? (20:35)
Assuming longtermism, should we prioritize focusing on risks of astronomical suffering in the long-term future (s-risks) or on maximizing the likelihood of positive outcomes? (27:00)
What sorts of future beings might be excluded from humanity’s moral circle in the future, and why might this happen? (37:45)
What are the main reasons to believe that moral circle expansion might not be a very promising way to have positive impacts on the long-term future? (41:40)
Should we focus on other forms of values spreading that might be broadly positive, rather than expanding humanity’s moral circle? (48:55)
Beyond values spreading, which other causes should people focused on reducing s-risks consider prioritizing (50:25)
Should we expend resources on moral circle expansion and other efforts to reduce s-risk now or just invest our money and resources in order to benefit from compound interest? (1:00:02)
If we decide to focus on moral circle expansion, should we focus on the current frontiers of the moral circle, such as farmed animals, or focus more directly on groups of future beings we are concerned about? (1:03:06)

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

Support the show

Previous Episode

Jo Anderson of Faunalytics and Saulius Šimčikas of Rethink Priorities on research for effective animal advocacy

We [Faunalytics] put out a lot of things in 2020. Some of the favorites that I [Jo] have, probably top of the list, I’m really excited about our animal product impact scales, where we did a lot of background research to figure out and estimate the impact of replacing various animal products with plant-based or cultivated alternatives. Apart from that, we’ve also done some research on people’s beliefs about chickens and fish that’s intended as a starting point on a program of research so that we can look at the best ways to advocate for those smaller animals... [Rethink Priorities’] bigger projects within farmed animal advocacy include work on EU legislation, in particular our view of how much do countries comply with EU animal welfare laws and what we can do to increase compliance. Jason Schukraft wrote many articles about topics like how the moral value of animals differs across species. There has been a review of shrimp farming. I [Saulius] finished an article in which I estimate global captive vertebrate numbers. And Abraham Rowe posted an article about insects raised for food and feed which I think is a very important topic.

Jo Anderson and Saulius Šimčikas

There have been many new research posts relevant to animal advocacy in 2020. But which are the most important for animal advocates to pay close attention to? And what sorts of research should we prioritize in the future?

Jo Anderson is the Research Director at Faunalytics, a nonprofit that conducts, summarizes, and disseminates research relevant to animal advocacy. Saulius Šimčikas is a Senior Staff Researcher at Rethink Priorities, a nonprofit that conducts research relevant to farmed animal advocacy, wild animals, and several other cause areas associated with the effective altruism community.

Topics discussed in the episode:

Faunalytics and Rethink Priorities’ research in 2020 relevant to animal advocacy (1:40)
Jo and Saulius’ work on polling about fish welfare (5:37)
The impact of replacing different types of animal products (12:27)
To what extent should animal advocates focus on legislative campaigns rather than corporate campaigns? (16:29)
Experiences and turnover in the animal advocacy movement (24:33)
New research on the difficulties of scaling up cultured meat (28:15)
New research about the promise of lectures to reduce students’ animal product consumption (32:16)
Charity Entrepreneurship’s (many) new intervention reports (36:54)
How the idea of longtermism should affect animal advocacy (39:32)
Other exciting effective animal advocacy research published in 2020 (45:51)
How does all this research actually lead to impact for animals? What is the theory of change? (50:06)
How do you decide or prioritize which specific research topic to pursue? (56:41)
What are the pros and cons of working on multiple cause areas within a single research nonprofit? (1:00:11)
What are the pros and cons of various different types of research? (1:05:21)
What are the main bottlenecks that the farmed animal movement and its contributing research organizations face? (1:18:17)
What routes into effective animal advocacy research roles did Jamie, Jo, and Saulius take and what is the relative importance of effective animal advocacy familiarity vs. formal research experience? (1:23:49)

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

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Next Episode

Tobias Baumann of the Center for Reducing Suffering on global priorities research and effective strategies to reduce suffering

“We think that the most important thing right now is capacity building. We’re not so much focused on having impact now or in the next year, we’re thinking about the long term and the very big picture... Now, what exactly does capacity building mean? It can simply mean getting more people involved... I would frame it more in terms of building a healthy community that’s stable in the long term... And one aspect that’s just as important as the movement building is that we need to improve our knowledge of how to best reduce suffering. You could call it ‘wisdom building’... And CRS aims to contribute to [both] through our research... Some people just naturally tend to be more inclined to explore a lot of different topics... Others have maybe more of a tendency to dive into something more specific and dig up a lot of sources and go into detail and write a comprehensive report and I think both these can be very valuable... What matters is just that overall your work is contributing to progress on... the most important questions of our time.”

Tobias Baumann

There are many different ways that we can reduce suffering or have other forms of positive impact. But how can we increase our confidence about which actions are most cost-effective? And what can people do now that seems promising?

Topics discussed in the episode:

Who is currently working to reduce risks of astronomical suffering in the long-term future (“s-risks”) and what are they doing? (2:50)
What are “information hazards,” how concerned should we be about them, and how can we reduce them? (12:21)
What is the Center for Reducing Suffering’s theory of change and what are its research plans? (17:52)
What are the main bottlenecks to further progress in the field of work focused on reducing s-risks? (29:46)
Does it make more sense to work directly on reducing specific s-risks or on broad risk factors that affect many different risks? (34:27)
Which particular types of global priorities research seem most useful? (38:15)
What are some of the implications of taking a longtermist approach for animal advocacy? (45:31)
If we decide that focusing directly on the interests of artificial sentient beings is a high priority, what are the most important next steps in research and advocacy? (1:00:04)
What are the most promising career paths for reducing s-risks? (1:09:25)

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

Support the show

The Sentience Institute Podcast - Tobias Baumann of the Center for Reducing Suffering on moral circle expansion, cause prioritization, and reducing risks of astronomical suffering in the long-term future

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:07.349

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Speaker 200:00:11.810

Into the sentience Institute podcast, where we interview activists, entrepreneurs, or researchers about the most effective strategies to expand humanity's moral circle. I'm Jamie Harris researcher at sentience Institute and animal advocacy. Chris, welcome to our 16th episode of the podcast. I was excited to have to bias Bauman on the podcast because I found that he consistently doe