Megaprojects for animals

By JamesÖz, Neil_Dullaghan🔹 @ 2022-06-13T09:20 (+258)

Summary

 

Where are the megaprojects for animals?

There has been a lot of buzz lately about megaprojects (projects that could deploy $100 million or more in funding per year). However, among the long lists of ideas presented so far (here, here, here, here, here, here) there are few ideas to reduce or end the suffering of animals.[1] This invites the question: do we have similarly scalable and promising opportunities to cost-effectively help animals given additional resources?

Despite corporate campaigns being very cost-effective (Šimčikas 2019) and receiving a large share of EA animal funding (Kato 2022, Ozden 2021), it’s not obvious that this will continue indefinitely. How much can we scale up corporate campaigns and still achieve a sufficiently large total impact to offset any decline in cost-effectiveness? What are some potential large and effective projects if our current projects become fully funded or less cost-effective? What options do we have for other species and welfare asks? Can they scale? 

Current spending by 2,000 organisations that include fighting factory farming as part of their work is just over $200 million per year (FAF 2021, 2020), and even less, about $40 million per year, is spent on “effective animal advocacy” (Ozden 2021 and Forristal 2020).[2] Most (85%) of these organisations in the animal advocacy space operate on budgets less than $1M, and the largest operate on less than $20M (FAF 2020). So we’re very short of the level of spending of $100M+ megaprojects. However, it’s expected that as the EA movement grows, the resources available to EA-aligned animal advocacy will too (especially from increased funding in this space from Open Philanthropy and possibly FTX Community). Still, it’s unclear if/when this would reach the levels of funding available for human-focused longtermist projects. Given this practical limit, $10M might be a more reasonable operationalization of “mega” in this space.
 

Regardless, we still think it is worth laying out some ideas of megaprojects for animals so that there are some shovel-ready projects if funding scales up, and to perhaps entice funders to enter the space in a big way with promising ideas. Additionally, this list is a call to action to generate back-of-the-envelope calculations or detailed research into some of these ideas, to more rigorously identify highly scalable and cost-effective ways to help animals.[3]

This list contains ideas from a range of reviews, contributors, and experts (though not all may endorse the broader idea of megaprojects or all ideas in this post). We haven’t yet taken the time to assess whether each of them could absorb $10M and at what level of cost-effectiveness. Partly this is because it’s unclear what the minimum bar should be. We are unsure which interventions can reach the cost-effectiveness of cage-free campaigns, especially when spending $10M per year (61-120 years of chicken life per average dollar spent/ ~7 animals spared a year of complete suffering). We perhaps should be willing to lower the cost-effectiveness bar because it’s plausible corporate campaigns are just a very rare good opportunity and it’s unfair to use it as a baseline (imagine if Givewell only granted to opportunities that were at least 5x AMF instead of at least 5x GiveDirectly). 

 

Why are megaprojects important to think about?

 

This is the basic framework Neil used for thinking about what might count as a megaproject:

Categorisation of animal megaprojects

We’ve roughly categorised the potential megaprojects into the following categories:

Build a better evidence base

There is no publicly available database of rigorously researched interventions with effect sizes and cost-effectiveness estimates for improving animal welfare. Relative to other fields such as global health, which spends $3.5 billion on research and development (R&D) alone, we understand reasonably little about the best ways to help animals. Greig (2021) estimates that animal advocates spend about 5-10% of our total annual budget of approx. $200 million on R&D, meaning the animal welfare evidence base is growing <1% as fast as the evidence base for global health. Funding research now could be crucial to inform our strategies over the next decades and provide early information value.

 

GiveDirectly for animals

Some of these options below could be investigated further to understand what our ‘bar’ is for animal welfare funding, as they are potentially the most scalable opportunities that will have the most direct impact on animals. One of these ideas could become the “GiveDirectly for animals”: reasonably cost-effective, massively scalable, very strong evidence-base, and almost guaranteed impact.

Financial incentives

Buy more welfare

Movement building (buy more people)

 

Build infrastructure


 

Build and launch organisations

Spread information

Buy policy change

Credits

Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas: Bob Fischer, George Bridgwater, Haven King-Nobles, Jacob Peacock, James Ozden, Jason Schukraft, Michael St. Jules, Neil Dullaghan, Ren Springlea, Renan Araújo, Sam Hilton, Saulius Šimčikas, Vicky Cox.

(Note these are personal opinions and do not reflect the views of each person’s employers).





 

  1. ^

    With the exception of Fai writing about space colonisation issues here and here.

  2. ^

    “Effective animal advocacy” refers to what we / the authors above consider EA-aligned animal advocacy.

  3. ^

    For example, people could flesh out some of these ideas in depth and submit it to the Open Philanthropy Cause Exploration Prize.

  4. ^

    We’re not implying that meat-free mondays campaigns are never cost-effective, but even regardless of the instrumental outcomes they could be useful.

  5. ^

    THL has 109 staff, MFA has 122, Compassion International currently employ 110 full-time staff and 31 part-time staff.  GFI has 59 staff members and 12 volunteers, WAI has ~6 as does Faunalytics (plus 12 volunteers). The largest budget of a farmed animal advocacy organisation is the ~$16M of Compassion in World Farming, followed by the $12M of Mercy for Animals but most operate on less than $1M.

  6. ^

    Whilst replicating many organisations doesn’t have the same minimal vetting to scaling ratio that other megaprojects might, we included this (and other similar items) on this list due to their otherwise promising attributes.

  7. ^

    New incubated charities usually get around $100,000, with $175,000 being the largest incubation grant given to date (James believes). Instead, this could be increased by 2-4x to give new organisations more runway, quicker abilities to test and scale, hire if necessary, as well as actually incubating a larger number of organisations.

     

Fai @ 2022-06-13T20:48 (+72)

Thank you for writing this! I have been thinking about some ideas that could become mega projects, just throwing some of them out here (you have already listed some of them)

evelynciara @ 2022-07-02T02:18 (+5)

These are interesting ideas! I think that AI systems designed with animal welfare in mind would be more reliant on computer vision and sensory data than NLP, since animals don't speak in human tongues. This blog post about using biologgers to measure animal welfare comes to mind.

Holly_Elmore @ 2022-06-19T18:40 (+3)

I'm nervous about implementing AI solutions in the near-term, because, as you allude, what they are used to achieve is matter of who's programming them :/

brb243 @ 2022-06-14T23:27 (+1)

These are very interesting. The electric stunning can be both beneficial in the way that animals, if they are at least intuitively aware what they live for - to maybe be eaten or produce animal products and be eaten, then if this is they all their life just chill and then it is just a stun, then it's quite ok. If they could they would probably contribute further, by some advancement, but since we currently only can use their contributions in this way, they may be quite ok just chilling taking care of their life. I read there at least were issues with the stunning machines in US slaughterhouses - simple technical issues - poor placement or inadequate current. Also, ritual killing is an issue. Stunning is more elegant and should be the new ritual.

Electrical bath for crayfish makes sense too. It can be just a simple electrode which prevents the issues of crawling (and thus loss of crayfish and capital). Of course, the alternative of eating rare tofus can be even better but for the time being - there should be manufacturers that would gladly produce this device.

AI monitoring welfare - I would not implement it, maybe in a few years when institutions become more interested in monitoring - it's a moonshot plus there may be other tech solutions with higher marginal cost-effectiveness. For example, actually, if you focus on cricket farms - I think that if they miss simple nutrients, such as salt, they eat each others. This can extensively slump the atmosphere there for large numbers of individuals. So, some maybe salinity/humidity/etc monitoring device that even a worker can go around with and just poke around and depending on the values nutrients are automatically dispersed. Of course, insect welfare research should perhaps be prioritized because what if crickets just love the thrill of eating others and being eaten since they live to the fullest or suffer in any case so optimal salinity makes very little difference.

I think plant-based is more promising with the cost right now than cultured meat. Still, the equipment is suboptimal since it is made for meat. Probably, these are relatively simple engineering solutions.

Animal language can be deciphered based on evolutionary empathy. For example, when one really eats some vegetable, they can feel like a bug in the same situation. When they are unsure about an unfamiliar object and looking at it, like a bird in that situation. You probably do not need to 'require' animals to communicate, since it is quite clear what they want - or, it is similar to what one can perceive in some globally poor/disempowered contexts: individuals do not have their own objectives since no one has asked them. I wonder if this should be different with animals: if developing their own interests would be a challenge/detrimental to their subjective wellbeing since they are used to/capable of only very simple lives.

You need research on wild animal welfare before you can be reasonably certain that interventions will be welcome. For example, animals can negotiate/make agreements/cooperate by the exhibit of power. Since they cannot imagine treatment and specialize in order to increase efficiencies by trade little (are independent of others outside of their family/tribe, more competing for scarce resources or benefiting from others' death), they can just have very different attitudes to concepts such as longevity, disability-adjusted life year. For them, it can be 'are what they should and protect those who they should' or not. It is a good life - righteousness transcends pain, which is accepted by its inevitability. Maybe. Engagement of similar humans can help elucidate non-humans' way of thinking.

Yes, you would need to know the quality of the lives of the number of animals to have valuable data. Even the number, and other metrics, can be beneficial, if maybe in the future the quality is associated with these metrics and historical developments inform optimal solutions as well as present welfare states. 

Hm, yes, computer models that track the developments of populations, e. g. based on predation rates are ok but the welfare is missing.

MartinB @ 2022-06-14T19:52 (+37)

On buying policy change:

The swiss non-factory farming ballot is actually coming this september and additional funding could greatly help to change the outcome. I copy+paste the reddit post I made yesterday with the details here:

 

A rather revolutionary referendum will take place in Switzerland this fall: The voters will decide whether in the future all livestock farming in Switzerland must at least meet the standards of "Bio Suisse", an organic label with rather strict standards.

I am writing this post because I am convinced that the initiative has a not bad chance to be accepted and a very high expected value. In a representative opinion poll on the launch of the initiative, 59% of the respondents said they were in favor of the initiative.

 

In Switzerland, 80 million animals are killed every year, which could now at least live and die under completely different conditions. In addition, the appeal abroad should not be underestimated if an entire country adopts such strict husbandry regulations and can show that it is a sustainable model.

Of course, the livestock industry, for its part, is throwing millions into the election campaign, which is why additional financial resources could make a huge difference to the outcome of the vote. The initiative is broadly supported by environmental organizations and led by a professional team.

More information and details for donations:

Campaign website (in German, Italian, French): https://massentierhaltung.ch/

Website of the organization leading the campaign (also in English): https://sentience.ch/en/

Fai @ 2022-06-15T05:37 (+4)

I really like this idea. In addition to financial supports, maybe EA should formally take a stance on this?

Nate Crosser @ 2022-06-15T23:00 (+24)

Some of my favorite ideas (some listed above):

  1. Venture philanthropy fund - evergreen fund (profits get recycled to make more investments) to invest in technologies/companies  that improve animal lives (alt proteins, more humane slaughter, conservation, etc)
  2. Hedge fund/venture scout model - turn high performing individuals in non-grantmaking roles into part-time grantmakers by giving them philanthropic budgets to deploy autonomously (and only continue giving them funds if they show "impact returns")
  3. Longtermist Animal Welfare NGO - this seems almost completely neglected by both EA LT's and non-EA AW people but there are many long-term nightmare scenarios we are not defending against (e.g. CAFOs in space, insect farming, digital animals, animal pandemics).
  4. Endow a university institute - I am not aware of any institutes dedicated to the study and promotion of animal welfare. "Animal health" is very common at the American land grant universities but in practice "animal health" means the opposite of animal welfare
  5. Mass media - funding of documentaries and other media that can convince mainstream consumers to stop eating animal products or otherwise expand their moral circle
  6. Asset management - Create a philanthropic private equity fund to engage in shareholder activism (such as Carl Ichan's failed bid with McDonalds)
  7. Infrastructure fund for alternative proteins - there is a desperate need for plant protein extraction infrastructure and precision fermentation/cultivated meat bioprocessing infrastructure (about $60Bn needed total). Venture capital largely won't invest because they are too capital intensive and governments mostly refuse to support the sector due to agribusiness lobbying power. Loan guarantees would help too.
  8. Supercharging existing EA AW orgs and Charity Entrepreneurship
  9. Impact litigation to make factory farming a liability like Legal Impact for Chickens 

Happy to share additional details on anything!  These are mostly finance based as that is my background.

Jamie_Harris @ 2022-06-18T09:50 (+17)

I enjoyed this post. And I appreciated some of the explanation in the intro. E.g. I can imagine this list being inspiring for donors (and hadn't thought about it like that before).

But is it much different from a list of (non-mega) project ideas?

E.g. see this comment:

"Rethink Priorities’ first incubated charity, Insect Welfare Project (provisional name) might be an example of launching something that eventually could absorb $100M when it finds an effective intervention and scales it. The Shrimp Welfare Project might be another example."

You could apply this logic to almost any animal charity that's trying to find interventions that are both cost-effective and scalable.

Once you adopt this perspective, the question could be switched from "which megaproject ideas can we think of?" to "how rapidly will we get diminishing returns on further investment in various plausibly cost-effective project ideas?"

Neil_Dullaghan @ 2022-06-19T21:40 (+8)

Thanks Jamie! We struggled a lot with this issue when writing the post.

I'm not really sure I see a problem or a difference with the "which megaproject ideas can we think of?"/ "how rapidly will we get diminishing returns on further investment in various plausibly cost-effective project ideas?" distinction. I think if the answer to the second question is "quickly and with only a few million $" then you cut the idea from the list. It's part of the way to arrive at answers to "which megaproject ideas can we think of?". Other ideas floated seemed like they would be cost-effective at a small scale but could never absorb $10M because the problem was so small (foie gras bans perhaps) or the low-hanging fruit was uniquely cheap (the first type of a new campaign in a new region/species but hit some blockers or severe diminishing returns as they try to scale), and other ideas didn't look cost-effective at a small scale only but maybe at large scale if they reach some sort of economies of scale (some sort of policy or subsidization schemes that only gain leverage at large scales).

On the specific example you highlighted, I think "almost any animal charity" would have more weight as a critique if there were many such opportunities. I think the N of animal charities pursuing interventions that could actually both scale & remain cost-effective is relatively small (I don't see orgs like FWI and Healthier Hens popping up without the deliberate effort of Charity Entrepreneurship and it's still to be proven if they can scale and remain cost-effective. Even larger orgs like CIWF & THL aren't obviously only doing cost-effective things). The two we cited (focusing on shrimp and farmed insects) were deliberate because the sheer number of animals affected provide the opportunity that cost-effectiveness could be maintained even if spending a lot of money, unlike other animal charities. 

I agree not all the items on the list will turn out to meet strict definitions, or even vague definitions, of megaprojects. The main point of the exercise here was to note the virtual lack of any ideas on animals and prompt discussion and interest, and secondly to actually propose ideas from among which further investigation might find some really compelling megaprojects.

ASuchy @ 2022-06-18T09:15 (+15)

Appreciate this post.

Sections that stood out for me as being particularly tractable & scalable are:

saulius @ 2022-08-11T11:29 (+5)

Something I have heard from many campaign groups is that having research conducted in their country in their own language would be really useful for working with local goverments, companies and producers.

Are there any particular existing texts that would be useful to translate to other languages? Perhaps the Welfare Footprint books on hens and broilers? This wouldn't be as good as research conducted in their own country but perhaps still useful and probably very easy to organize and fund.

ASuchy @ 2022-09-10T12:24 (+1)

Yes, I think it is exactly that sort of thing Saulius. From what I have heard it is often the research about how animals are kept that people want from their region/country.

Derek @ 2022-06-16T18:01 (+11)

There is a lot of potential in fish welfare/stunning. In addition to what others have mentioned, IIRC from some reading a few years ago:

SofiaBalderson @ 2022-06-14T09:57 (+10)

This is a very valuable post. Thanks a lot to both for writing this up! Looking forward to seeing some of these megaprojects happening in the future!

Guy Raveh @ 2022-06-13T10:42 (+10)

Very cool! I hope to see at least some of those analyzed and maybe taken off the ground in the near future :)

PV @ 2022-06-15T09:13 (+9)

I love this post! Based on my experience as co-founder of Talist (and a lot of research before launching this new organisation) I want to highlight the need & opportunity for mega-projects for headhunting, building up a talent pipeline and training -  basically solving the talent bottleneck for both the EAA movement and the Alt. Protein Industry. Globally finding, attracting and assessing the best people could easily absorb multi million fundings and there are opportunities for very scalable projects with great potential for high impact. (I am currently investigating the idea of a digital talent community / job market place for STEM professionals to help solve the talent gap in the Alt Protein Industry.  I wish there were already more opportunities for non-profit funding for bigger projects like this. The only funder I am aware of is the Future Fund / FTX community and they do not accept unsolicited funding requests atm. So I am considering for-profit funding, which comes a long with several risks and downsides compared to non-profit funding)

Kite @ 2022-06-25T18:27 (+3)

Excellent post! Regarding fellowships and scholarships within academia, I would also suggest offering pre-PhD fellowships similar to NSF, NDSEG, or Hertz, which support a student's full grad school tuition. The stipulation would be that the student's dissertation would need to be related to animal welfare-related topics, which is similar to how NIH training grants in the USA are already structured. A similar model could work for postdoctoral fellowships.

This would have the following benefits:

Regarding encouraging faculty to work on animal welfare topics, establishing less restricted funding sources (i.e., earmarked for animal welfare research, but not tied to a specific project) for faculty with strong track records of working in this area would improve substantially on the current model and incentives.

Marie Reinke @ 2024-06-28T11:41 (+2)

Hi @James Özden thank you so much for mentioning Expertise for Animals

We are working hard to support animal advocacy with our knowledge in veterinary medicine and biology. 

You are currently linking to another consulting organization who works with zoos, keepers and trainers on the welfare captive animals as far as I understand. 

Our link is https://www.expertiseforanimals.com/en/home 

Expertise for Animals is supporting other organizations and activists with our expertise and moves data from animal welfare science into animal advocacy. 

If other forum users could help me tag James, I would very much appreciate it, since i can not mention him directly yet. 

James Özden @ 2024-06-28T17:01 (+2)

Fixed! Thanks for flagging this

Marie Reinke @ 2024-08-05T21:13 (+1)

Thank you so much!

artilugio @ 2023-11-27T07:45 (+1)

someone recently posted the transcript from an 80k hours podcast interview with an MIT scientist who invented something called the CRISPR drive, which the MIT scientist thinks could be used to make lots of male screwworms infertile so that they stop making larvae that eat the flesh of many millions of animals every year. New World Screwworm would be difficult to eradicate in South America, where it does most of its damage, but it is still endemic in Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Trinidad and Tobago, which are island nations who would be protected by the sea from re-infestation if NWSW were to be eradicated on their territories. I imagine it may also be problem on non-sovereign islands like Colombia's San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean, and maybe Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, which definitely has a parasite that is endangering several bird species by invading the organisms of hatchlings. Uruguay is trying to eradicate NWSW on its territory now. maybe a megaproject could pay technicians from the Uruguay mission, if it turns out to be successful, to try to repeat the feat on a Caribbean island to try to bring the issue to the attention of more nation-states and donors.

Michael_2358 @ 2023-11-25T02:34 (+1)

Fantastic piece. A lot to think about and digest. Thank you for writing this.

genidma @ 2022-06-25T14:56 (+1)

Supporting New Harvest could go a long way towards helping ensure well-being of animals. I met with Stephanie from their team earlier this year. Here is a link to a Ted Talk by one of their co-founders (Isha Datar). 

It seems like they have a small, but very capable team. The way I understand it, their focus is to continue to foster the collaborations/research in the wider domain of cellular agriculture.