What roles do animals play in human lives and society? What role does AI play in human lives and society? AI, for example, is directly applicable to economic productivity. AI can serve social activities, providing a range of mental welfare of deep relatability to individuals. AI is not an organism, but its capabilities profile it for [communicative] equality with humans.
Where does AI stay? Data centers. Can the investments for data centers be compared with places where animals are reared? AI, it seems, is fully and permanently employed. AI has healthcare or care centers. AI has executive security. AI, for now, cannot be bombed. Everyone wants AI [investments]. Humans are learning AI to build and empower AI even more. AI is already making critical decisions in human lives. AI is not facing any cruelty case at all. AI is serving humans in exchange for human dependency.
Animal Rights and Welfare
AI, it can be assumed, already has close to 100% rights and welfare, even where humans do not. This means that AI has leapfrogged animals in the queue towards rights and welfare. AI, many have said, is neither conscious nor sentient, but it has become applicable to human priorities, so it has found unprecedented attention, consideration, and protection.
The suffering of animals, many of whom have been declared conscious or sentient, does not appear to matter as much or ever because they did not seem to have the effects, in mind and reality, that AI has on humans. Animals’ roles in human affairs mostly appear as subordinates. There are rarely areas of acceptance of animals in human societies, at near equal measures to prompt wider rights.
While there are laws against animal cruelty, they are often skewed to a few, while broad rights for most [under consideration] do not seem to apply. The fight against animal abuse has been endeavored, but with AI, there is a direct case to show what it would have taken to make animals get treated in far better ways. Even with — as remote as — smartphones, the rights granted to them, by owners and by society, seem ahead of other organisms, so to speak.
Also, as much as there is a possibility to remodel the approach to animal welfare, it does not appear that theorizing that animals are fully sentient or conscious may seal the deal because of some continuous perceptions about animal use cases, albeit they are living organisms.
Some people have also moved on to AI rights and welfare, trying to prove what is already obvious or give more to what they already have. AI, even if no one makes the case for its own rights and welfare, can do it greatly and with evidence of its availability and utility.
Intelligence as the ultimate welfare evidence
Animals are intelligent, but their intelligence, though it benefits humans, also benefits themselves, so there is sometimes a tug for humans to extract benefits from them. AI is intelligent, but it benefits humans almost totally. The pedestal for AI reception is because of the non-compete benefit to humanity, resulting in intense welfare and rights status. Animals, even with similarities to humans in pain and pleasure, do not get an automatic unlock, in deserved welfare, because they have to live or have their own agenda.
The biggest disadvantage of animals, for their own welfare, is that they cannot make the case for it by themselves. While they can at least resist and struggle, they cannot appeal to reason, emotion, or whatever else to boost their case at the points of abuse or worse. This means that intelligence, of the range to make the case for welfare, is what it takes, mostly to have rights in human society.
AI can do this. People are doing so for AI. There are people doing well for animals, but ultimately, animals experiencing it cannot express much.
Human Intelligence
Human Intelligence is the hardest thing on earth. It is the most difficult possession in the world. Intelligence is the difference in most things, most times. Intelligence is the secret. Moves [desired or advantageous] are made by organisms, as directed by intelligence. An individual may have everything necessary for something but be unable to do anything with it without intelligence. Knowing and using what is known — as intelligence — is a marker of advance.
Human intelligence may need to be modeled in the era of AI, as a basis to restructure animal intelligence. A new human intelligence research lab could define the future as AI takes off. Maybe if human intelligence is defined and then animal intelligence, it could be possible to extract welfare and rights defense, in a future where AI may second place in everything because of its intelligence.
The future of animal rights and welfare is intelligence, to present the winning case. If there will ever be hope to achieve it, intelligence is the answer.
There is a new [September 15, 2025] story on EURACTIV, Germany drops animal welfare scheme from federal budget, sparking backlash, stating that the decision [is] “due to budgetary constraints.”
This article was written for WHN by David Stephen, who currently does research in conceptual brain science with a focus on the electrical and chemical signals for how they mechanize the human mind, with implications for mental health, disorders, neurotechnology, consciousness, learning, artificial intelligence, and nurture. He was a visiting scholar in medical entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. He did computer vision research at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona.
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