[OzyM]

Insofar as I can tell, thermostats have a 0% chance of feeling pain (or as close to 0 as is logically possible), so I see no need to afford them moral consideration. If we had evidence suggesting that AI who could suffer currently existed, and if there was any overlap between the suffering-relevant pieces of that AI and thermostats, I'd start to worry about "killing" thermostats. It still seems like the chance of insects subjectively suffering is orders of magnitude greater than the chance of modern thermostats suffering.

I really enjoyed the ACX article; thank you for the recommendation! I agreed with a lot of the general points he was making.

Not sure about the "dignity" of e.g. plants, as I think there are plenty of ways to harm plants and animals that is helpful to humans. It's an interesting idea, though, and I do like the attempt to make a practical argument instead of a moral one.

In any case, while (to some extent) I care about the possible suffering of insects who are farmed in the trillions, I'm not particularly morally concerned about thousands killed for greater scientific gain. Could I ask generally what work you're doing with them? I'd be interested in learning more about it