AI futures for animals hold enormous opportunity – as well as risk. The direction this and other transformative technologies take will require concerted efforts from animal advocates, technical experts, researchers, policymakers, and more. Over the next eight weeks, we will engage with high-stakes issues from the present day (e.g. the emerging use of AI in factory farming) to the far future (e.g. developments across animal communication, genetic engineering, and beyond). Our goal is to equip you with the knowledge and network to steer these powerful technologies towards positive outcomes for all sentient beings.
This all starts today. In this session, you’ll get to know your facilitator and fellow learners. We'll walk through the course structure and themes, with plenty of time for your questions. We're so glad you're here.
Please review all of these resources prior to your session.
This document contains important information about the program structure and content. Please review it before your first session.
Learn more about our values and vision for the fellowship program.
Take your learning further through these additional resources. These readings provide further background on some of our core values at Sentient Futures, as well as our approach to cause prioritization.
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Center for Effective Altruism (2024) | 10 min read
A basic intro to the core tenets of Effective Altruism (EA), which are thinking tools like scope sensitivity and impartiality designed to help prioritize actions that do the most good. You don’t need to identify as an EA to participate in this fellowship, but these principles offer a useful, shared framework for having structured, productive discussions about how to best help animals.
Problem profile: Factory farming
Benjamin Hilton (2024) | 1h read; 1h56m audio available
This 80,000 Hours problem profile makes the case that factory farming is one of the world's most pressing problems by analyzing its massive scale, severity, and relative neglectedness. The text provides crucial context for our course by framing the immense stakes involved as we consider how AI will either worsen this suffering or provide new tools to end it.
The case for quantifying sentience in animal welfare
Damin Curtis (2025) | 10 min read, 19m audio available
This EA Forum post introduces a framework for animal advocacy centered on sentience, arguing that by quantifying and comparing welfare across different species, we can make more strategic decisions about how to most effectively reduce suffering. This is highly relevant to our fellowship as it provides a structured, evidence-based method for navigating the complex ethical trade-offs we will encounter, especially when AI's impact forces us to weigh the welfare of vastly different beings.
Learn more about our organization and what we do.