Update: Retrospective of the 2025 Bay Area Conference

Project summary

In 2024, ~130 (60 in person, 70 virtual) people joined together at the AI, Animals and Digital Minds Conference (AIADM) 2024 in London to learn, connect, and make progress towards making AI safe for nonhumans. The conference followed the original “Artificial Intelligence, Conscious Machines, and Animals: Broadening AI Ethics conference” (held at Princeton by Peter Singer, Tse Yip Fai, Leonie Bossert and Thilo Hagendorff) and now, we want to run the third iteration of it.

We are seeking $30k* to help cover the costs of running this event again in 2025, this time in the Bay Area.

*For comparison, in-person EAGx events typically cost $150–500k. 

The London conference from June 2024

What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?

Our goals are to:

• Host a 3 day conference for 100-250 in person attendees in the Bay Area

• Make talks available for virtual participants

• Explore how we can develop AI technologies in a way that protects and benefits nonhuman animals and potentially sentient AI

• Increase the salience of the field of AI and Nonhumans

• Foster networking among leaders in this field
  

By hosting in the Bay Area, we aim to:

• Attract a local audience of AI professionals

• Increase chances of ongoing interactions and collaborations post-conference

• Directly influence AI development at its source

Here are some testimonials from the last conference:

“Attending the AI, Animal Welfare, and Digital Minds Conference was an incredibly enriching experience. The event featured fascinating presentations and a very engaging public, whose stimulating questions added depth to the discussions. I had the opportunity to share the innovative use of AI at the Welfare Footprint Project. The audience's enthusiasm and interest in our work were truly motivating. Participating in the follow-up retreat was another highlight. The only challenge was choosing between the many great conversation groups, each offering unique insights and perspectives. Additionally, we started specific collaborations, such as engaging Gal Zanir to help with the art and science book on the Life-Fates of Wild Boars. On a personal note, I had a fantastic time at the social events. The conference was not only intellectually stimulating but also a lot of fun. I look forward to future events and collaborations that will continue to drive progress in AI and animal welfare.”

- Wladimir Alonso, Co-Founder at Welfare Footprint Project

“The conference was very well organised and was a lot of fun. I loved how the conference brought together numerous groups that don't typically interact. Animal advocates and activists could meet and discuss topics with academics studying precision livestock farming and philosophers researching animal consciousness and digital minds. I made many connections I otherwise wouldn't have, and am now working on a project with some academics I met at the conference.”

- Thomas Manandhar-Richardson, Data Scientist at Bryant Research

You can view some of the tangible outcomes we achieved from the 2024 conference in our retrospective. 

We have gained valuable insights around conference organizing, as detailed in our behind the scenes, and believe that, given enough funding, we can execute this conference even better and achieve more of the type of valuable connections and knowledge transfers that we were able to achieve in 2024. 

Note: We have some uncertainties about continuing to include digital minds as a track in the conference. We mostly included it in last year’s conference because we thought it was an important issue, wanted to keep up the momentum from the first conference at Princeton, and didn’t see any other conferences that covered this topic. If there is another event that will be focused on digital minds or we got sufficient indication that including digital minds would lower the overall impact of the conference, then we would consider excluding the topic. Conversely, if we got enough support for including digital minds, we would keep it in.

How will this funding be used?

We have provided a detailed budget breakdown for the AIADM Conference 2024, which you can view here*. For 2025, we expect increased costs to mainly be for securing a more reliable and optimal venue in the Bay Area, meals, and labor. These increased costs will go towards creating a better experience for the attendees, being able to hold the conference in the Bay Area where it will attract more relevant stakeholders, and reducing uncertainty/stress for the organizers in the planning phases*. The costs for each element will vary depending on what opportunities we are able to find (with last year relying heavily on in-kind donations) and how much we are able to fundraise, with the venue being the most variable cost. We estimate it will be $2-120k for the venue/AV setup, $3-20k for the food, and $3-15k for the labor. Any leftover money we raise will be used for community building initiatives such as hosting smaller meetups throughout the year.

*During the 2024 conference/retreat in London, we were able to reduce financial costs significantly ($5.7k for 8 days) through securing free venues at LSE and Newspeak House, paying the opportunity cost of the founder working full time for 2 months pro bono to organize, and asking people to get their own meals for 2 of the days. Neither venue we booked was ideal as we could not confirm the Newspeak House location until 1 month before the date and the LSE location was too small with people needing to stream the conference from separate rooms or sit on the floor. We had little control over the LSE venue and were locked out of the rooms at times and could not put up signage. People also had to travel between the different venues, which reduced overall engagement and added to the logistical burden. Founder time spent on organizing also seemed suboptimal because operations was not Constance’s comparative advantage and she had to drop other responsibilities with Hive and her business during this time period. A security issue at one of the venues also took up 4+ hours of organizer time during the event. Having people get their own meals and asking people to volunteer also reduced the amount of discussion time that was able to take place. 

As we strive to professionalize the field, additional funding will help us to plan a smoother conference experience that optimizes for networking through being in the location of the most relevant stakeholders and creating conditions for attendees and organizers to focus on discussing the topic at hand rather than on logistics.

Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?

The conference organizing will be spearheaded by Hive’s co-founder and AI for Animals founder, Constance Li, who was the main organizer for AIADM 2024. She will be supported by the AI for Animals Program Lead (which we are currently hiring for) and by various members of our AI Coalition (a community of currently 220+ members) many of which offered their support in promotion, speaking, volunteering, venue finding and more last time. 

In addition to having previously organized this conference, Constance has accomplished a lot in building out the field at the intersection of AI and Animals in the last ~2 years - see here. 

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)

The most likely cause of failure would be being unable to secure a venue within our budget and desired date (around EAG Bay Area) or having difficulties with our Program Lead hiring process, resulting in less capacity than anticipated for running the conference. In this case, we would either scale down the number of people who could attend to 100 or less depending on what budget/capacity we had available or reinvest the funds towards improving the quality of the smaller monthly AI for Animals meetups in SF. This would result in slower advancement in the field of how AI would impact the welfare of animals or digital minds. Potential collaborators and thought leaders would be less likely to meet and the rapid development of AI would be less likely to include consideration for the interests of nonhumans to the extent that it otherwise would.

What other funding are you or your project getting?

We have 3 individual donors who have together funded 10k for the conference and one year of a program lead position for AI for Animals, who will be at least partly responsible for running this conference. How much of the Program Lead’s time will need to be devoted to organizing the conference vs outsourcing it to contractors will depend on how much we are able to raise. Constance will continue to self-fund for working on AI for Animals in general, which will include some conference planning. 

Concluding thoughts

The AI for Animals, and Digital Minds conference 2025 represents a crucial opportunity to advance the field of AI ethics and safety with respect to nonhuman animals and potentially sentient AI. Building on the success of our 2024 event, we aim to create an even more impactful gathering in the Bay Area, bringing together influential stakeholders who work directly with AI and span academia, tech, policy, and nonprofit sectors.

Your support of $30,000 will help us to:

• Expand the conference’s reach from 60 → 100-250 people and accelerating the development of the field of AI and nonhumans

• Secure a suitable venue in the Bay Area, improving our ability to attract key stakeholders. 

• Provide a higher quality experience for attendees

• Reduce logistical challenges faced last year

With your funding, we can build on the momentum in the field generated by past conferences. We believe this investment will yield significant returns in terms of new research directions, policy/commercial considerations, and collaborative projects that can positively influence the trajectory of AI development for nonhumans.

Note about in-kind donations: We would also be open to non-financial support, especially if you can help arrange for suitable venues close to transit that can accommodate this amount of attendees or if you can help us get discounts for vegan catering.