Comment by virgildotcodes
2 days ago
> recent work in animal communication
Worth noting that this is an invisibly small part of the sum total of our global efforts, especially versus the much more tangible effort we put into enslaving and slaughtering them, then mangling their carcasses for our own uses as we drive more and more of them to extinction.
We simply don't care about anything beyond ourselves and even there it breaks down on closer analysis when we see how many within our species don't truly value the collective whole beyond themselves.
It's just atoms all the way down.
The problem is not that AIs will somehow treat people badly, it's that they'll be controlled by humans who will treat other people badly using AI as a tool.
> enslaving and slaughtering them, then mangling their carcasses for our own uses as we drive more and more of them to extinction.
I'm frankly offended by this mischaracterization of human-animal relationships. So called "slaves" like horses and dogs have been dearly beloved companions for centuries and actively seek our companionship too.
The animals we raise for slaughter are often mistreated, yes, but many humans treat them with respect; billions on billions are voluntarily spent to improve their condition. Despite our own needs, many people pay higher prices for animal products that involve better treatment of animals. And they are in no risk of extinction! Much to the contrary, their domestic variants would not exist if humans didn't raise and protect them.
> We simply don't care about anything beyond ourselves
Have you seen modern westerners with their dogs??
I think you’re splitting hairs. The OP’s analogy works well.
If we end up in a future where AIs have as much concern for our welfare as we have for the welfare of the average animal (not the minuscule percentage of domesticated dogs, but the overwhelming majority of factory-farmed or simply driven to extinction), then I doubt you would consider it a “mischaracterization” to say that the whole AI thing did not work out to our advantage.
Bringing up “modern Westerners with their dogs” as a counterexample is almost self-parody.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not rooting for a "human zoo" future. I very much like being the dominant species on earth.
It would be absurd to claim that all animals live some sort of charmed life due to humans.
But saying that animals (especially those most similar to us like intelligent mammals) are nothing more than "atoms" to humans is equally absurd.
I don't think the analogy worked. It contained giant axes, and a giant grinder, and the OP shoehorned both into an unrelated discussion about math.
> The animals we raise for slaughter are often mistreated
"Often mistreated". Dude, they are held in tiny cages injected with hormones and what not till we kill them so we can have a big mac. It's very hard to argue we do any of this for nutrition reasons, we do it because we like the taste of burgers and roast.
> I'm frankly offended by this mischaracterization of human-animal relationships.
Are you more offended than you are over the brutality of our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom? Seems like Victorian pearl clutching.
> So called "slaves" like horses and dogs have been dearly beloved companions for centuries and actively seek our companionship too.
No idea why you have quotes around slaves. You've heard of the horse-drawn carriage, wagon, carts. People still ride and use horses as beasts of burden around the world.
I was on Gili Trawangan recently, which has no internal combustion engines. You have horse drawn carriages, and now more recently electric mopeds.
The horses are nearly blind due to their masks and have a metal bit threaded through their mouth they can never extract. Their backs are covered in open bleeding sores as their harnesses rub against them with every step while they strain to pull people and their luggage up and down the island all day long, every day.
Have you heard of horse racing, dog racing? What do they do to those animals?
Have you heard of animal testing, on dogs even? Do you think those dogs that are having their skin peeled off, toxic chemicals forced into their lungs and veins, living and dying in agony feel dearly beloved?
There's a nice documentary on the testing on beagles called "Animal People", I'd suggest watching it.
Another good one about the animal industry as a whole, "Earthlings", you can watch for free on youtube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrY2TP0ZyU
Even the pet industry, do you know what a puppy mill is? Do you know what the dog meat industry is? Do you understand the conditions that the majority of dogs on earth are born into, live in, and die in?
This perspective you're expressing is a Disney cartoon hallucination that has nothing to do with the character of our world.
> The animals we raise for slaughter
What about the ones we use for fur, leather, experimentation, entertainment, hunting for sport, the ones being driven to extinction by habitat destruction, overfishing, the countless species drawn up and killed as bycatch by our fishing fleets...
There are series of videos produced in Southeast Asia and sold online of people torturing baby macaques to death. Amputating their limbs, lighting them on fire, keeping them alive through this over days and weeks and months.
There are restaurants in China that will descale, gut, sear, and serve a fish to you without killing it so that it is still breathing as you tear bits of flesh off it and eat it on your plate.
You can eat live octopus whole at many Japanese restaurants.
Everywhere you go in Thailand you see cockfighting.
> are often mistreated
If you were subjected to what we do to animals in animal industry, do you think you'd be so timid to characterize what we do as mistreatment?
> many people pay higher prices for animal products
Over 99% of meat sold in the US comes from factory farming, and globally economics trumps all other considerations in this conversation. Welfare is an afterthought, and primarily a marketing concept.
1 in 200,000,000 may win the lottery, that does not mean investing in the lottery is a wise way to make money.
The whitewashing of grass fed, local, humane blah blah is bullshit in the majority of cases, and serves just to extract more money from consumers and salve their conscience.
Even in the 0.001% of farm animals' lives that match this idealistic vision, if you yourself had a great life, would you want your throat slit?
> And they are in no risk of extinction
We are currently in a mass extinction. Are you arguing that wiping out virtually all the earth's biodiversity to replace it with cows, pigs, chicken, sheep is a net good for the the animal kingdom?
> their domestic variants would not exist if humans didn't raise and protect them.
Imagine I tell you there's a breed of human we could bring into existence through eugenics and genetic engineering that would experience perfect agony every moment of its existence. Every nerve in its body firing nonstop 24/7 as if it was bathed in fire. Its only form of communication with the outside world a constant scream.
Should it be thankful for its existence? Should we say "well the only reason it even gets to exist is because we raise and protect them"?
At what point along the spectrum of perfect bliss to perfect agony do we say maybe it's not a good thing to bring this being into existence? Maybe we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back for what we're doing to them?
> Have you seen modern westerners with their dogs??
Yes, what percentage of the time, money, and energy of modern westerners would you say goes towards positive treatment of their dogs, versus all the other activities and pursuits that constitute the rest of their lifespans (including feeding those dogs the body parts of tortured animals) that contribute directly or indirectly to animal suffering, as well as the destruction of the natural world and the animals who live within it?
Atoms are a lie.
So it's lies all the way down?
I had suspected...