AI is already shaping the lives of many animals today – sometimes directly (e.g. use in factory farming), and sometimes indirectly (e.g. speciesist bias in chatbots and image generation models). This session maps the current and near-future landscape where AI and animal lives intersect, exploring major benefits and risks for animals– as well as key leverage points for advocates.
🧩 Central questions
- AI benefits: How might current and emerging AI technologies lead to significant improvements in animal welfare?
- AI risks: How might the very same technologies lead to massive suffering and increased exploitation of animals
- Leverage points: As advocates, how can we effectively influence the trajectory of these powerful new technologies?
🧭 Learning objectives
- Understand: Identify current and emerging AI technologies with significant implications for animals.
- Assess: Evaluate the potential benefits and harms of specific, real-world AI applications. Pinpoint strategic opportunities for intervention (e.g. through research, policy, or technical work) across AI development and deployment.
- Reason: Apply evidence and principles to the prioritisation of cause areas within the AI×Animals frontier.
- Next steps: Identify key resources, organisations, and individuals for further learning and discover opportunities for impact (e.g. jobs, volunteer roles, etc.).
Resources
Required readings
Additional readings (please read at least 1)
Further readings (optional)
Pre-session exercise
Please spend 20-30 minutes completing the following exercise.
- You can write your responses in bullet point format if that’s easier.
- Submit your responses in the weekly Slack thread created by your facilitator in your channel at least 24 hours before your regularly scheduled meeting.
- Leave at least one comment on somebody else’s response.
AI in the wild: your first investigation
Your goal for this exercise is to find one real-world example of how AI is already impacting animals and analyze its potential consequences. You will share your findings in our first group discussion.
Look up a recent news article, blog post, or other web resource that discusses a specific AI application affecting animals. Paste the link below, and then in 300-500 words, discuss:
- Scope & scale: Which animals are/will be affected, and how many?
- Net impact: Is this AI application more likely to be beneficial or harmful for those animals? Why?
- Tractability: What’s one key action advocates could take to steer this technology toward a positive outcome?
Tips:
- If you’re not sure where to start, check the readings for links or citations. Focus on what interests you the most!
- It’s natural to encounter uncertainty! If you’re not sure how to answer one of these questions, try to identify different factors that might sway one way or another (e.g. Aquatic PLF has significant implications for fish– the largest group of farmed animals. But if it requires significant infrastructure, then it may take time to be implemented.)
