Episode Details
Back to Episodes“Animal Welfare is Just Part of AI Alignment Now, and Both Groups of Advocates Should Celebrate This.” by Aidan Kankyoku
Description
This post was inspired by debate week, but I also published it to my Substack. There, most of my readers are not as familiar with EA discourse, so I added a long introduction which I haven’t copied here (but which you might find entertaining). There's also a voiceover of the full version available on Substack or in any podcast feed if you search “Sandcastles”.
1. The heart of the matter
There's a debate taking place on the EA forum this week. The motion is:
If AGI goes well for humans, it’ll probably (>70% likelihood) go well for animals.
Taken literally, this could leave a 30% chance of AI going catastrophically bad for animals even if it went well for humans– think factory farms orbiting space colonies.
Many people working frantically on AI alignment agree with the statement “If AGI takes off hard and fast, it will probably (>70% likelihood) go well for humans.” 30% is still a terrifyingly high chance of disaster, more than enough to throw out everything else and focus on averting it.
Multiplying these two .7s gets us to .49, i.e. a less than 50% chance of AI going well for animals. But I don’t think [...]
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Outline:
(00:35) 1. The heart of the matter
(03:25) 2. The make AI go well movement
(05:53) 3. AW and GHD are part of MAIGW
(07:29) 4. A new hope
(08:57) 5. How to be a TAI-focused AW movement
(11:39) 6. Raising an animal-friendly god 🚨 \*CRUX ALERT\*
(20:03) 7. How to be an animal-friendly Make AI Go Well movement
(24:34) 8. Family reunion
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First published:
March 24th, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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