Episode Details
Back to Episodes“If AGI goes well for humans, will it go well for (wild) animals?” by Simon Eckerström Liedholm
Description
This post was written by Simon Eckerström Liedholm, Strategy Researcher at Wild Animal Initiative, and it is a contribution to the AGI & Animals Debate Week. It partially builds on an earlier exploration of transformative AI and wild animals written by Mal Graham. Disclaimer: I (Simon) would describe myself primarily as a biologist. While I have a long-standing interest in AI safety, I'm by no means an expert on the subject.
Executive Summary
This post asks whether, if AGI goes well for humans, it will also go well for animals, with a particular focus on wild animals. I estimate a ~30% probability that it would.
My prediction rests on several considerations. First, I think the most likely path to AGI “going well” for humans probably involves aligning the AGI with something roughly similar to the values of an average present-day human, values that currently permit a lot of suffering among farmed animals. Second, if current values are mostly locked in, which seems like a plausible scenario, I don't think it would lead to meaningful improvements of animal welfare.
I also conclude with some tentative suggestions for animal welfare advocates, and highlight potential backfire risks.
Definitions and assumptions
What question [...]
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Outline:
(00:41) Executive Summary
(01:31) Definitions and assumptions
(01:35) What question is this post meant to answer?
(02:19) Animals
(02:39) AGI
(03:16) Go well
(04:44) Considerations
(05:20) AGI timelines
(05:24) AGI timelines probably matter for animal welfare outcomes
(06:06) When should do I expect AGI to be developed?
(07:55) Working on safeguarding the welfare of future wild animals seems particularly important
(08:51) Future values
(08:54) Predicting future values based on current values
(11:39) Values of future decision makers
(13:01) An animal-welfare-indifferent AGI may be especially bad from a suffering-focused perspective
(14:40) Hard-coding animal welfare concerns (and associated risks)
(15:40) How likely is it that, if AGI goes well for humans, it will go well for animals?
(16:46) Conclusions
(16:49) General thoughts
(18:48) What would I recommend animal welfare advocates do?
(18:53) Risks of accidental harm
(21:42) Tentative suggestions
(23:45) What would make me change my mind?
(25:07) Acknowledgments
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First published:
March 24th, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.