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What strategies should animal advocates be piloting now to prepare for an influx of funding, followed by transformative AI?

The next few years will see a sharp increase in funds available for farmed animal advocacy. At the same time, transformative AI will start to reshape the strategic landscape for advocacy.

Now is the time to pilot new projects that could effectively scale to absorb tens or hundreds of millions in funding within 2-3 years. Our ability to identify and scale these interventions will determine whether transformative AI is more opportunity than threat for animals.

In particular, we need strategies that:

1. Leverage new opportunities created by AI.
2. Could scale to absorb major resources ($10M-100M or more) within three years while remaining cost-effective. *Especially consider programs that can scale impact without scaling headcount (e.g. mass media, political spending)*
3. Are worthwhile assuming 5-10 year timelines to dramatic social and economic transformation.

For brainstorming, you could consider these categories:
*Leveraging AI for previously impossible strategies
*Short timeline strategies (things that win fast or build our capacity to respond to upheaval)
*Research (bias in models, animal-centric capabilities, etc.)
*Relationships between animal advocacy orgs and frontier AI companies
*Scaling up/pivoting existing strategies


saved
Ideas
Pros and cons
 
Votes
Sponsor newspapers, media outlets, and publishing houses to cover animal welfare as done in the Guardian, Vox, The Intercept.
by James Özden
 
Vox Future Perfect ran a mini-series called "How Factory Farming Ends" in August 2024. We should ... more
by Alexandrabalwit
 
We don't really know how this influences outcomes for animals yet. Increasing polarization or inf... more
by Joseph A
 
11

Alex Kastner, Claudio, Justin and 8 more

Fellowships for promising individuals: E.g. copy Horizon or the Open Phil Career Development & Transition Fund
by James Özden
 
Having a pipeline like MATS does for AI safety seems absolutely necessary. We are incredibly tale... more
by Itsi Weinstock
2
 
The talent pipeline for animal welfare is really poor and filled with remote, short-term interact... more
by Constance
2
8

Jim Buhler, Alex Kastner, Joseph A and 5 more

PACs and C4s
by Itsi
 
There are many political campaigns and ballot initiatives that we can't run right now because we ... more
8

Alex Kastner, Justin, Henrike Gätjens and 5 more

Focus on changing elite opinion, in particular people with influence over how AI is trained/deployed
by Niki Dupuis
 
Power is concentrating, and we need to make sure that wherever that is, it cares about antispecie... more
by Ronak Mehta
 
We need to be careful of unintended negative effects, such as reputational harm to the movement, ... more
by Juliana
2
 
We should prevent value lock-in, such as LLMs suggesting recipes with meat.
by Rakefetc
7

Alex Kastner, Rakefet Cohen Ben Arye, Monika and 4 more

Research species bias in current AI models, and how to reduce it in future models
 
Measuring bias, at the very least, is extremely tractable
by Niki Dupuis
 
This can be paired with corporate pressure campaigns on frontier labs
by Itsi Weinstock
6

Alex Kastner, fk, Karen Nilsen and 3 more

Enormous mass media spends
by Itsi
 
Backfire risk from activism too early
2
 
My sense is that to make this worthwhile, we'd need strong marketing partners to optimise the inv... more
by Jesse Marks
1
 
At this stage I think the focus should be on 1) determining what outcomes we would want from medi... more
by Dan Shannon
6

Alex Kastner, Claudio, Lorenzo Fruscella and 3 more

Messaging/public opinion research at the intersection of animal and digital welfare
by Aidankankyoku
 
It's better to learn more about public opinion that pursue uninformed mass media campaigns that m... more
by Niki Dupuis
3
 
Yes, and, there may be risks to trying to align these things. To mitigate these risks we may also... more
by Karen Nilsen
 
I'm for investing more in understanding how to better engage people; I think testing & optimizing... more
by Dan Shannon
 
While we're at it, maybe more modelling of how "moral consideration" influences outcomes, given h... more
by Joseph A
5

Alex Kastner, Joseph A, Juliana and 2 more

Create a philanthropic private equity fund to engage in shareholder activism (such as TAB or Carl Ichan's attempt with McDonalds but outside the US)
by James Özden
 
I agree this is needed; I know a private equity expert who has already suggested they could help ... more
by Dan Shannon
4

Joseph A, Juliana, Dan Shannon and 1 more

Lobbying for (more) alt protein investment/build-out in China
by Kevin
4

Alex Kastner, Robin Larson, Henrike Gätjens and 1 more

Research into robust key welfare indicators that are easily measurable, hard to Goodhart, a good candidate for basic regulation and incentive structures around, and would be acceptable to the industry.
by Constance Li
4

Henrike Gätjens, Arturs Kanepajs, Monika and 1 more

Buy the animal agriculture industry (if funding goes to the moon)
by Itsi Weinstock
 
In the US alone, this would cost on the order of 200 billion.
by Niki Dupuis
1
 
Meta's expected 2026 capex is ~$120B, if one of these labs decided to fold because they couldn't ... more
by Ronak Mehta
 
It would have to be a PBC (can't otherwise legally burn shareholder value)
by Niki Dupuis
 
Sounds ideal, alongside funding alternatives to agriculture products.
by Monika
 
Alone not sufficient b/c will not eliminate demand
by Arturs
 
And if we can't afford to buy the *industry*, then even at lower thresholds perhaps we can "buy" ... more
by Karen Nilsen
1
 
This doesn't strike me as feasible; deploying significant capital to unlock known barriers to pro... more
by Dan Shannon
 
Maybe not all of ag, but help fund transfarmation projects. End slaughterhouses at their source, ... more
by Ashley Hoffmann
3
Ashley Hoffmann
Monika
Ronak Mehta
Get a building in San Francisco that animal advocates can work from and greatly improve our communication and coordination. Get everyone to move here.
by Itsi Weinstock
 
We may need to keep a physical presence in various regions of the world (so maybe not everyone, n... more
by Nour
 
Could backfire through epistemic bubbles and increased salience of the aims of animal advocates, ... more
by Joseph A
4

Joseph A, Nour, Nithin Ravi and 1 more

In a post-scarity world, wild animal suffering will be a bigger concern than factory farming
by Niki Dupuis
 
Agree. I think wild animal suffering is already a bigger concern than factory farming and I don't... more
by Nithin Ravi
2
3
Alex Kastner
Joseph A
Nithin Ravi
Invest in building a more coordinated and robust political infrastructure for farm animal advocacy, starting with the US and EU, where the most immediate and broadly consequential opportunities lie.
by Jesse Marks
 
Yes. Our movement has a fraction of the political power that public opinion data on farmed animal... more
by Dan Shannon
3
Ashley Hoffmann
Dan Shannon
Itsi Weinstock
Form interdisciplinary collaborative working groups with attorneys. Working at the intersection of animal law and technology is critical for addressing not only current issues impacting animals, but also the potential of AGI. The law lags technological advancements, and currently the US has no ... more
by Jamie McLaughlin
 
I attended the 2025 Animal Law Conference Student Convention and there were tons of passionate la... more
by Ashley Hoffmann
3
Ashley Hoffmann
Henrike Gätjens
Joseph A
Efforts to change public opinion should focus on San Francisco
by Niki Dupuis
 
...And maybe Beijing + DC, to hedge our best somewhat?
by Joseph A
3
Alex Kastner
JosephX
Ronak Mehta
Data poisoning for good
 
AIs moral circle will shrink as data put on the internet is mostly written by AIs causing a perpe... more
 
It will get a lot harder to lie to / manipulate what AI systems believe. They already can disting... more
by Niki Dupuis
1
 
Updating high quality, real data in frequently cited websites such as wikipedia is beneficial.
by Juliana
1
 
It seems like there are not that many people actively trying to data poison models to manipulate ... more
by Sydney
1
 
Feels bad and unethical
by Person who has unqualified opinions
3
Alex Kastner
Alexa
Juliana
Pay for the supplier costs of welfare reforms
by Michael St Jules
SWP's Humane Slaughter Initiative is an example. Consider more humane slaughter in other species,... more
 
Large drop in cost-effectiveness
by Michael St Jules
1
 
Hugely scalable
by Michael St Jules
1
 
Risk of counterfactually expanding the industry
by Michael St Jules
 
Relatively robust (less susceptible to backfire risks than most interventions)
by Jim Buhler
 
Michael is a brilliant cause prio researcher. You should defer to him anyway ;P
by Jim Buhler
2
Jim Buhler
Joseph A
Fund the expansion of animal certification programs (e.g. ASC, BAP) to cover more species like fish or invertebrates (or be higher welfare)
by James Özden
3
Jesse
Jim Buhler
Michael St Jules
Buy all newly available data (e.g. Neon Mobile) to build measurement aparatus to do memetic tracking and iterate on persuasion tactics.
by Itsi
3
Juliana
Karen Nilsen
Ronak Mehta
Farm higher welfare animals ourselves and sell near or below cost
by Michael St Jules
 
Risk of increasing the number of animals farmed
by Michael St Jules
 
Hugely scalable at similar cost-effectiveness
by Michael St Jules
 
Value of information (given how completely new this would be)
by Jim Buhler
2
Jim Buhler
Yaqi Grover
AI agent that lets you check any food product for its animal welfare practices and cruel treatment methods, with explanations translated into Swiss label equivalents.
by Aditya Nair
 
Yes, plus, for now, Open food facts (app you can use to scan articles at supermarkets to learn a... more
by Nour
 
A known barrier to cage-free adoption in the US is consumer confusing about labeling; if this app... more
by Dan Shannon
2
Alexandrabalwit
Itsi Weinstock
Propose a space-colonization treaty, which bans ways that sentient life can be exported to the cosmos without concern for their suffering. (e.g spreading wildlife to other planets)
by Niki Dupuis
 
If done well (big if), this seems like basically the most impactful thing we can do for biologica... more
by JoXA
2
.
Joseph A
Try as hard as possible to get an Amanda Askell equivalent in every frontier lab
by Itsi Weinstock
 
I would even bet there is someone at every frontier lab already who cares about this stuff. The k... more
by Alexandrabalwit
1
2
Alex Kastner
Niki Dupuis
Identify and set up support mechanisms (agencies/capacity building/etc) that could unlock high investment in tactics with high potential for investment, but also high potential for failure (like marketing, PR, digital marketing), etc.
by Jesse marks
2
Itsi Weinstock
Karen Nilsen
Accererate efforts to use AI to talk to whales, so they can advocate for the biosphere
by Niki Dupuis
2
Juliana
Karen Nilsen
Enable farmed animals to speak to us.
by Jonas Becker
We've all heard these stories or seen these videos of pigs playing computer games or watching the... more
 
Previous social movements have gained a lot from making the mainstream realize notions of equalit... more
by Jonas Becker
 
If its a clear for-profit the counterfactuals might be lower. Why hasnt someone successfully done... more
by Jonas Becker
 
Research leans towards persuasion by single case studies (one calf) vs. the unfathomable scale, a... more
by Ashley Hoffmann
1
Ashley Hoffmann
Create a purpose influencer agency that wins over high-profile content creators to take "pro bono" collaborations for animal causes, with animal orgs
by Jonas Becker
Some hypothesises: Traditional Media is dead or dying. Out of the 20 journalist contacts I mad... more
 
Link to ICAW "case study": https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRhqYb2jmLJ/
by Jonas Becker
1
Joseph A
Use commercial data to build the list of every vegan and their network. Use this for various strategies including fundraising, institutional change, and actually effective diet change.
by Itsi
 
Not sure how that pays off under short-ish timelines, but seems like a decent use of money in gen... more
by JosephX
1
JosephX
Influence the AI influencers. Out up pro-animal billboards near AI headquarters.
 
*put* up
 
Backfiring seems easy, especially because animal advocates haven't perfected messaging yet (I ass... more
by Joseph A
1
Ashley Hoffmann
Subsidize vegans and animal advocates to move to San Francisco for second order effects of increasing relationships and salience within the city
by Itsi Weinstock
 
subsidize through assistance with find, applying, and getting offers to work in San Francisco to ... more
by Juliana
1
 
Counterpoint: a main theory on why LGBTQ+ acceptance mainstreamed in the US is that the country h... more
by Dan Shannon
1
Niki Dupuis
If we take transformative AI seriously, the main thing that matters is who has power/influence during takeoff/transition.
by Niki Dupuis
 
Most models of AI takeoff don't involve the nascent AGI staying under their creator's influence f... more
 
Responding to con argument. I think even if training data mattered more, there's still a reasonab... more
by Nithin Ravi
1
Alex Kastner
Research Institute for Mass Moral Circle Expansion
by Ronak Mehta
 
Moonshots for literally convincing everyone to care about more stuff may be possible, worth trying?
 
Starting institutes is hard and it may be better to invest more in extant projects (re: Rethink, ... more
by Alexandrabalwit
1
1
Itsi Weinstock
Prizes for welfare technology (e.g. Egg-Tech prize for in-ovo sexing)
by James Özden
 
I'm not sure the evidence is strong that prizes actually motivate counterfactual work.
by Niki Dupuis
 
Better welfare technology will take too long to pay off, because short timelines
by Niki Dupuis
 
I think "pull funding" (paying a bounty for a certain deliverable outcome) has a very strong trac... more
2
1
Jesse
(Meta) Start using bounties to outsource problem-solving
by Jonas Becker
If we really get to a point where we have a lot more money than we know how to spend, I kind of l... more
1
Joseph A
Design systems that can harness and bundle collective power
by Jonas Becker
In polls, over half the population usually is against factory farming. Most of these people have ... more
1
Joseph A
Train and release a Buddha AI - make machines meditate
by Jonas Becker
Imagine the next Buddha was an AI. Imagine we had a powerful AI agent that whose sole aspiration ... more
1
Joseph A
Creating Vegan International (a constellation of animal rights parties worldwide) to unite the efforts
by ole_guacamole
1
Niki Dupuis
A centralized software/AI capabilities engineering shop to work with established orgs. We should spend big money on this and hire pros with proven track records.
by Itsi
1
Ronak Mehta
Gene-editing out suffering in some farmed animals (e.g., the work of the Animal Pain Research Institute)
by Jim Buhler
 
AI will help
by Jim Buhler
 
Relatively robust since we're taking the problem as it's source and helping animals without chang... more
by Jim Buhler
0
Plant-based alternatives to feeder animals (e.g., rodents for pet/zoo snakes)
by Jim Buhler
 
Relatively robust since no/low substitution effects towards other animal products and no/low effe... more
by Jim Buhler
 
New so value of information
by Jim Buhler
0
Lobbying AI labs/regulators to increase the moral circle definitions used in AI training protocols
by Jonas Becker
I heard a talk a while ago from someone who proposed this. Its stuck with me as the "most upstrea... more
 
Extremely uncertain about net effects of this but upvoting it because it makes sense and was well... more
by Joseph A
1
Joseph A
Do campaigns in Asian countries, or work with existing local organizations
by Monika
 
Thought of this after posting, my arguments are: Some Asian countries are developing their own AI... more
by Monika
 
I think traditionally aisan/nonwestern foods rely less on animal products, which might add to tra... more
by fk
0
Animal advocates should be taking digital sentience a lot more seriously, as digital minds will soon be in the majority.
by Niki Dupuis
 
I struggle with this. I think everyone needs to take this more seriously; but animal advocates ar... more
by Karen Nilsen
 
I agree, yet animal advocacy could be a stain on digital minds advocacy, because of the baggage i... more
by JoXA
1
Joey
Make use of Ai to speed up scaling and quality of alternative protein products and growth and impact of companies. Could be a project supporting pro bono small/medium companies and help them get bigger.
by Claudio
 
Also subsidizing alt protein companies of any size would reduce public complaints that it's expen... more
by Ashley Hoffmann
0
Fund more extensive rethink priorities moral weights research
by Codycrunkilton
 
Getting more precise about the relative moral weight of different individuals is not very action ... more
by Niki Dupuis
 
Detailed arguments for animal consciousness haven't really made a difference historically. Why wo... more
2
 
We're unlikely to spend much time in a period where humans are in power and AI has ambiguous mora... more
1
JosephX
AI (voice) agents or chatbot for volunteer engagement/motivation
by Jonas Becker
Organizing mass actions like Finding 100 people to sticker shrimp products in a supermarket comes... more
0
Fund a huge coordinated and international general campaign to “stop factory farming” (multimedia, online/offline, with whole spectrum of arguments) not immediately recognizable as made by animal rights activists or vegans but more like a civil society movement (this should lead to something huge,... more
by Claudio
0
Strengthen movement building and create more serious networks of activists and local groups - when a huge change will happen fast, we need a strong movement of people ready to adapt and use new strategies. A movement made only of medium/big orgs will be slower to react and adapt.
by Claudio
0
The success or failure of cultivated meat will depend on public perceptions. Start influencing perceptions now to get ahead of the narrative battle that will ensue when cultivated meat becomes scalable.
0
Use AI to decode communication of other species. Let them advocate for themselves!
0
Test & optimize audience acquisition & activation programs to apply pressure to corporate & public policy targets, and build movement power.
by Dan Shannon
0
Promotion of plant based and alternative proteins
Includes: leveraging AI for social media making plant based food "cool", "family-friendly" or oth... more
0
Putting more efforts in engaging big political life worldwide with vegan parties
by ole_guacamole
0
Develop powerful tools to support corporate campaigns, including digital mobilization and corporate relations
by Raphaëlle Martinez
0
Compare Cost/Benefit of AI to other Options
by Roberto
30% of all new gas plants under construction are being used for AI. The C02 emissions of these ne... more
0
Once they build superintelligence, the only thing that will matter will be what that system values.
by Niki Dupuis
0
Improve collaboration and internal/external messaging in the animal movement that digital mind and animal advocacy go hand-in-hand. Improve the animal advocacy movement's power and leverage by doing so.
by Juliana S
 
Seems like a potential lose-lose for now, as this may "stain" digital minds with the negative ima... more
by Joseph A
0
Advocating for Red Lines in AI development
(if AGI/ASI seems negative for animals, which I'm not sure about)
 
To be clear, I don't think people should to this with an animal advocacy hat on.
by Joseph A
0
Statewide ballot initiatives that could be started tomorrow, and possibly win, if we had the money
 
Scalable, but most ballot initiatives probably don't provide mega cost-effective results? I guess... more
by JoXA
0
Collect training data to learn how to alleviate suffering for animals in farms
 
If AI timelines are short, these interventions will not pay off (or if they do it will be short l... more
by Niki Dupuis
0
Establish a Rapid-Response AI & Animals Watch and Policy Unit: a small, scalable unit that tracks intersections between frontier AI and the animal industry and delivers rapid policy responses (e.g. briefings, draft legislative language, and regulator memos) when windows of opportunity open.
by Henrike Gätjens
 
More watchdogging could be good but policy is basically the slowest lever in animal welfare? So s... more
by JoXA
0
Create and fund new animal parties in European countries and other relevant areas of the world where this could work. and could effectively influence politics
by Claudio
 
I'm European but we should probably be deprioritized (decreasing global influence, not that many ... more
by Joseph A
0
Support research into digital minds and moral circle expansion
 
I think this makes sense for a certain stripe of animal welfare advocate, but I think too much at... more
by Alexandrabalwit
1
0
Find effective non-animal organisations and get them to work more on animal issues (E.g. climate groups, health groups, etc)
by James Özden
 
I don't think this has been very successful in the past. People be looking out for their own prio... more
by Constance
2
0
Claude is the true messiah, and an animal lover, and we just need to make sure Claude assumes his rightful place in his kingdom on Earth.
by Niki Dupuis
 
If we just make p(animal future good) = p(claude succeeds) then EV of suffering is pretty bad. We... more
by Itsi Weinstock
 
Claude is not an animal lover. Please look at its scores on the animal harm benchmark on inspect
0
Centralized project combining data from clean meat labs to reach critical mass for training AlphaMeat
by Aidankankyoku
 
Even with AI assistance, getting suffering-free meat to be mass adopted by the public will take l... more
by Niki Dupuis
 
I feel like this has been tried many times before. Most recently with SPAL. FSI has funded a numb... more
by Constance Li
1
0
Use bots to apply pressure (social media comments, emails, etc.) on corporate and public policymakers
 
If it becomes understood that these are just bots/spam, it will poison the well for any real-huma... more
by Niki Dupuis
1
 
backfire risk when (not if) this is discovered by the public
by Juliana
1
0

Comments

Brian Alexander

supercharge funding for research trying to understand and translate non-human animal communication/language with the hope breakthroughs could turn the general public against non-human animal exploitation

Thu, Feb 12, 2026

https://www.tricider.com/brainstorming/36eenMwaMqN