I wonder if AI could revolutionize "pets" and our relationship with animals. 🤔

I want to start off by saying I don't have any moral conflict with dogs and cats.

They evolved in harmony with humans and this is their environment. A dog is happy in a house, living with people. And even dependant on it. They seem to kind of need us. And we love them, so it works.

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But i.e. rabbits are different. They don't want to be in a cage, for you to look at. (Or even if you've arranged it where they can run around your apartment, whatever, same thing. A tiny bit better, but the point is this is not their environment and not satisfying to them and it's probably awful. Even if it's cute to you.)

So that's my feeling about pets.

Artificial Intelligence

I wonder if one day in the distant future, AI can train squirrels and rabbits to identify which humans they can safely trust.

And humans (to whatever extent they qualify and demonstrate trustiness) can opt in to the protocol, and then when you walk thru the woods, squirrels and rabbits can follow you.

Maybe they know they can run on you and jump on you. Maybe some people just want to be followed, and be able to see them and drop food.

So "aw, isn't my rabbit friend cute?" wouldn't have to do with caging them in some kind of awful existence. It would have to do with them being a normal rabbit, and they hang out with you on mutually beneficial terms.

🤔🤔🤔

I've talked about a "sliver of time" dynamic before, and this I think is one of them.

I understand the feeling of you want to be around the rabbits. If you love animals, it kind of feels like you "should" be able to. It's inescapable that being in your cage is bad for the rabbit, yet having no rabbit in your life doesn't seem perfect either.

I suggest that right now we live in the sliver of time where this is an issue. Where life is smooth and we're able to capture rabbits and send them off to PetCo and this is something people even consider and have as an option.

(A thousand years ago we had other things to worry about, and weren't that good at economizing rabbits.)

But we don't yet have a better or more complete way of connecting ourselves with them.

So now it's all about going a step further and even more advancement, and maybe there's a way to reconcile "I want cute bunny rabbits in my life" with "rabbits obv aren't happy in your cage or meant to live that way".

You heard it here first.