Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: AI, Animals, and Digital Minds 2024 - Retrospective, published by Constance Li on June 19, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
This is a retrospective of the AIADM 2024 Conference, Retreat, and Co-working in London.
Tl;dr: ~130 people joined together over the span of three days to learn, connect, and make progress towards making AI safe for nonhumans.
Background
This event followed in the footsteps of the
October 2023 Artificial Intelligence, Conscious Machines, and Animals: Broadening AI Ethics conference held at Princeton by Peter Singer, Tse Yip Fai, Leonie Bossert and Thilo Hagendorff. It was planned in a [formerly private] AI Coalition channel on the
Hive Slack that many of the attendees of the original conference were invited to for the purposes of continuing conversation. It was here that I discovered that running the conference in 2024 would be highly counterfactual because Peter Singer was retiring from Princeton and none of the previous organizers were planning on repeating it. We were able to get permission to hold the second iteration of the conference and even got a
promotional endorsement by Peter Singer. The process of planning took place over several months and was independently funded.
Objective
The goal for this event was to explore how we can develop AI technologies in a way that protects and benefits nonhuman animals and potentially sentient AI. We had the dual purpose of increasing the salience of the field of AI and Nonhumans and also getting potential leaders to network with one another.
To advance the former goal, the content and programming needed to be highly accessible so we made it hybrid, recorded as much as practical, created
website pages and
social media assets for speakers to help with pre-conference promotion and future SEO for the speakers, and added more event space as the RSVPs crept up. It was open to anyone who could offer value to furthering this field, including, but not limited to, thought leaders, researchers, industry workers, funders and hopeful future contributors.
Timing and location
All in-person events took place in London immediately after EAG London (May 31 - June 2)
June 3: Conference (hybrid: onsite - live room and overflow room, offsite - livestreaming, and virtual)
June 4-5: Retreat (virtual and in-person options that only synced up during
hour of livestreamed lightning talks)
June 6-11: Co-working (in person)
Attendees
There were 260+ applications for attendance. A directory was created of people who consented to have their application answers shared with other attendees. These included answers to questions such as: What is your experience or demonstrated interest in the topic? Why do you want to attend? What can you offer to other attendees?
Conference
The 1st day was a hybrid conference:
It took place at the London School of Economics (LSE), split between 2 rooms which had around 50-60 total attendees.It was also streamed live to Newspeak House which had 10-15 attendees. Around 50-70 people attended via zoom.
We had a very tight schedule and prioritized having more time for Q&A so each talk was only 10 - 20 minutes long and we grouped similar talks together as panels.
Sessions
AI for Animals
Towards Ethical AI: Collaborative Efforts for Animal Welfare under the EU's AI Act by Dr Fakhra Ikhlaq and Dr Saeed Ahmad (
watch session |
view slides)
AI's Potential to Map Animal Suffering: Insights from the Welfare Footprint Framework by Wladimir Alonso (
watch session |
view slides)
Animal-friendly AI = Misaligned AI by Bob Fischer (
watch session |
view slides)
Building Pro-Animal AI Systems panel by Sam Tucker and Sankalpa Ghose (
watch session |
view
slides)
AI in Farming panel by Virginie Simoneau-Gilbert, Amber Elise Sheldon, and Walter Veit (
watch session |
view
all
slides)
Digital Minds
Changing attitudes to...

S3 Ep32: The Young Guns: Henry Arundell & Ben White