The Sentience Institute (SI) is an American interdisciplinary

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

that aims to expand humanity's moral circle. It was founded by

Jacy Reese Anthis Jacy Reese Anthis ( ; born December 16, 1992) is an American social scientist, writer and co-founder of the Sentience Institute with Kelly Witwicki. He previously worked as a Senior Fellow at Sentience Politics, and before that at Animal Char ...

and Kelly Anthis in June 2017 and has published research reports on

social movements A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of ...

morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...

, animal advocacy and digital sentience.

History

The Sentience Institute was founded on the principle of

effective altruism Effective altruism (EA) is a 21st-century philosophical and social movement that advocates impartially calculating benefits and prioritizing causes to provide the greatest good. It is motivated by "using evidence and reason to figure out how to b ...

, a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. The institute bills itself as, "an advocacy think tank researching and advising advocates on the most effective strategies to expand humanity's moral circle." Its founders, Kelly Witwicki and

, were working at Sentience Politics, which was part of the Effective Altruism Foundation. Sentience Politics is now a nonprofit organization running political initiatives in the German-speaking area. Anthis had also previously worked at Animal Charity Evaluators as chair of the board of directors and then as a full-time researcher. Anthis and Witwicki were selected for

Vice Media Vice Media Group LLC is a Canadian-American digital media and broadcasting company. Vice Media encompasses four main business areas: Vice Studios Group (film and TV production); Vice TV (a joint venture with A&E Networks, also known as Vicelan ...

's 2017 "Humans of the Year" award. Reporter Matthew Gault described the institute's research agenda as "a huge endeavor." Kelly spoke of the need for evidence and research in the study of social movements: Witwicki and Anthis married in 2020.

Research

Sentience Institute synthesizes some of its research into a Summary of Evidence for Foundational Questions in Effective Animal Advocacy, which catalogs evidence from a variety of sources with implications for animal advocacy movement strategy. Since 2017, the institute has published several white papers including a study of the British antislavery movement, a study of the French

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

movement, and a study of

genetically modified food Genetically modified foods (GM foods), also known as genetically engineered foods (GE foods), or bioengineered foods are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using various methods of genetic engineering. G ...

. The institute polled the views of American adults towards animal agriculture, most notably finding that 47% agreed with the statement, "I support a ban on slaughterhouses." It was replicated in January 2018 by a team of agricultural economists at Oklahoma State University who found the same result. In November 2018, Anthis, writing under the pen-name "Jacy Reese", published '' The End of Animal Farming'', which summarizes and builds on most of the institute's research and communicates it with the general public. Near the end of the book, Reese concludes that, "if I had to speculate, I would say by 2100 all forms of farming will seem outdated and barbaric." Reese criticizes the notion of humane meat. In 2023, the Sentience Institute indicates that it is focusing most of its research on digital minds, writing that while concern around artificial sentience may seem farfetched, it should be taken seriously notably due to the potentially extremely large number of instances in the future.

References

External links

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The Sentience Institute Podcast
' {{Effective altruism 2017 establishments in New York City 501(c)(3) organizations Animal think tanks Animal welfare organizations based in the United States Nonpartisan organizations in the United States Non-profit organizations based in New York City Organizations associated with effective altruism Political and economic think tanks in the United States Think tanks based in the United States Think tanks established in 2017

History

Research

See also

References

External links