Sean Richardson

PhD Student (Stats/ML) @UCBerkeley || AI Safety, Animal Welfare

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

Perhaps no topic has the power to turn otherwise bright, reflective individuals into unthinking trolls like veganism. Supposedly Bertrand Russell once said “if they refuse to eat meat because of humanitarian principles, they should also refuse to eat bread” (bc wheat is killed)

[Jan Dutkiewicz @jan_dutkiewicz]

I just saw a professor make the "Hitler was vegetarian" point in the context of the Billie Eilish veganism kerfuffle - a point normally reserved for anonymous trolls - and goddamit can't people just be normal when approaching this topic? Also do I have to like Billie Eilish now?

[Jay Shooster @JayShooster]

You sure do love to see it!

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@SableHummer But maybe just in my head :p

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

Relationship culture is really interesting in the Bay. Have gotten some interesting reactions lately from women on dates after telling them I'm not queer or poly

[Holly ⏸️ Elmore @ilex_ulmus]

I want to be clear I am not hostile to polyamory. I would proudly die defending a world where people can live and love however suits them. I see beautiful poly relationships that I stan all the time.

I’m against the implication that having one orientation or the other is better.

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@SableHummer Hah I think less vitriol more “oh so you’re a normie”

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@SenSchumer Thank you for protecting animals and small farmers alike!

[Sentience Institute @SentienceInst]

Our new #CHI2026 paper identifies "digital companionship": overlapping use of ChatGPT AI assistants and Replika AI companions.

People like that they are not fully human: always forgiving you, having a reset button...

Blog: https://t.co/9wGcFM4JmQ
Paper: https://t.co/6zdzmW1cvM

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@AnimalCharityEv Is the video link missing?

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

My @nytopinion colleague @ezraklein on how an obsession with efficiency can cost us our humanity — in this case, in how we (mis)treat pigs on factory farms, and how some in Congress aim to make this trade off worse. https://t.co/HjUthpHWNy

[Cas (Stephen Casper) @StephenLCasper]

My reasoning behind wanting to stop superalignment research:
- Principal-agent alignment is neither necessary nor sufficient for safety and ecosystemic health. I think the vast majority of our problems will come from scenarios involving systemic harms, negligence, or malice instead of situations in which someone benevolent was exercising what would be considered “best technical practices” at the time but non-foreseeably loses control of their AI.
- I think that current alignment, control, and containment strategies are actually pretty good and there is a big incentive for ML people to underemphasize the effectiveness of these tools to justify their existence. If you’re willing to pay a safety tax and are not “move fast and break things,” existing best practices can make systems pretty robustly safe.
- Superalignment is pretty safety washed and is touted by big companies to justify their ambitions to build the superintelligence.
- Solving superalignment would be a huge boon and would consolidate enormous power in big tech. This is itself a risk factor.
- Jevons paradox — it’s easy to see how lowering the perceived risk of building superintelligence would make more companies choose to try.

[Holly ⏸️ Elmore @ilex_ulmus]

“Nothing ever happens” takes like this often boil down to “sit down, your excited energy is annoying”, which can really *feel* true even when you’re wrong about the claim.

[Alex Bores @AlexBores]

The Save Our Bacon Act is a brazen attack on animals, independent farmers, and NY’s rights.

The Trump regime and Congressional Republicans are trying to sneak in a measure that incentivizes the most cruel and inhumane practices, and they want to block all future state regulations while they’re at it. The pattern of cruelty is undeniable.

Washington’s message is clear: the powerful corporate interests want to take away your choice and stake in animal protections.

I’m proud to have been endorsed by @humaneactfund and @theanimalvoters because I championed animal rights in Albany, and they know I’ll do the same in Washington from day one.

My position is crystal clear: in Congress, I’d vote No.

https://t.co/x07MGC358f

[Niclas Dern @NiclasDern]

I have decided to focus my PhD work on preventing catastrophic outcomes from the development of AI systems. Over the past few months, I've had a number of conversations in which I described my reasoning for this choice. To share my thinking more broadly, I wrote a blogpost laying it out.

The TL;DR:
- The capabilities of AI systems are developing fast, and it seems at least plausible that we will get systems that match or vastly exceed human capabilities within the next 10-15 years.
- If we get there, the consequences would likely be massive. It could accelerate progress on important problems, such as curing diseases, tackling climate change, and improving education, but it could also cause significant harm to society.
- In particular, many experts take the possibility seriously that our society could end up permanently locked into a very bad state (e.g., extinction, concentration of power in the hands of a few, loss of control to a powerful AI system).
- Unfortunately, I do not think there are nearly enough people working directly on preventing such catastrophic outcomes. Therefore, I've made reducing these risks the focus of my PhD.

You can check out the full blogpost here: https://t.co/ObM3tnH4IL

[S. Prabhu Ⓥ @Sharzard5]

I can excuse the mass torture and slaughter of animals but I draw the line at cultural insensitivity

[Jeff Sebo @jeffrsebo]

We can safeguard human dignity and personhood without denying that nonhumans can have these features too.

My inherent worth is in no way diminished by yours. And our inherent worth as a species is in no way diminished by the fact that we share the world with quintillions of animals across millions of species that have their own forms of life and their own inherent worth.

In the future, the same may be true of AI systems—and perhaps to an even greater degree, given that humans and AI systems will share capacities for language, reason, and self-awareness. Indeed, AI systems will likely eventually surpass us in these respects.

The sooner we appreciate that safeguarding human dignity requires promoting human and nonhuman flourishing together, not denying nonhuman dignity, the better off everyone will be.

Incidentally, this would also be a good lesson to teach AI systems before they start making decisions that affect us: you can recognize dignity in other beings while still protecting and promoting it for yourself.

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@goblinpunditry @gladio_descent @morallawwithin I cycle through Hu*l, Soyl*nt, KATE FARMS, Orga*n. Oh and PROBAR. [For some reason the full names get me marked as spam.]

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@gladio_descent @goblinpunditry @morallawwithin I’m on a steady diet of cereal, protein shakes, pita chips + hummus, and diet coke, wbu?

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@sorceressofmath @mechabowser Kinda based!

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

Really wonder what it’s like having such a monocausal worldview. I guess it must be comforting in some ways.

[Lyra Sieradzka @lyrasie]

all questions veganism raises are addressed by communism.

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@Mozi762 @SocRepProject Didn’t even read the title! Or doesn’t understand what “sentient” means.

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@mechabowser This also stretches the diagnosis — like, then it is not capitalism as an economic system that is the cause of animal exploitation but rather hierarchy at large. So it’s a sort of bait and switch I think.

[Sean Richardson @bayesian_wasian]

@mechabowser Sure I like this vision but I strongly doubt most self-proclaimed communists would consider animals a class. In practice communist nations have also exploited animals in just the same way as capitalist ones.