This panel brings together three leading researchers to discuss their work on welfare and moral patienthood in non-human minds. The panel focuses on two especially challenging cases: invertebrates and digital minds. Jeff Sebo (NYU) begins with a discussion of ethical and methodological considerations related to extending moral considerability to invertebrates and AI systems; Daniela Waldhorn (Rethink Priorities) discusses the current state of evidence regarding consciousness and sentience in invertebrates; and Patrick Butlin (Oxford) discusses what is currently known about the prospects for artificial sentience in digital systems.
Jeff Sebo is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program, Director of the Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program, Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program, and Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection at New York University. He is the author of Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (2022) and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights (2018) and Food, Animals, and the Environment (2018). He is also a board member at Minding Animals International, an advisory board member at the Insect Welfare Research Society, a senior research fellow at the Legal Priorities Project, and a mentor at Sentient Media.
Daniela Waldhorn is Director of Animal Welfare at Rethink Priorities. She has more than 15 years of experience in animal advocacy in Latin America and Europe, and has extensively researched several farmed invertebrate welfare issues. Daniela is also a Ph.D. researcher at the Department of Social Psychology at the University of Barcelona, a board member of the Centre for Animal Ethics, an Associate Professor at Pompeu Fabra University, and a research member of the COMPASS Project at the same university. She also serves as an advisor to the Shrimp Welfare Project and the Aquatic Life Institute. Daniela has an MS in International Development (Jaume I University and University of Valencia) and an MS in Ethics and Politics (University of Barcelona), and you can reach out to her in Spanish, Catalan or English.
Patrick Butlin is a philosopher of mind and a researcher at the Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford. Patrick previously worked at the Future of Humanity Institute. Most of Patrick's research is on consciousness and agency in AI.
Andreas Mogensen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, which is part of the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University. Andreas has worked on a range of different issues in meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. His current research is primarily focused on questions in the philosophy of mind and well-being, with the potential to inform the weights we assign to non-human minds in priority setting.
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