“AI for Animals 2025 Bay Area Retrospective” by Constance Li, AI for Animals

Our Mission: To build a multidisciplinary field around using technology—especially AI—to improve the lives of nonhumans now and in the future. Overview Background This hybrid conference had nearly 550 participants and took place March 1-2, 2025 at UC Berkeley. It was organized by AI for Animals for $74k by volunteer core organizers Constance Li, Sankalpa Ghose, and Santeri Tani. This conference has evolved since 2023: The 1st conference mainly consisted of philosophers and was a single track lecture/panel. The 2nd conference put all lectures on one day and followed it with 2 days of interactive unconference sessions happening in parallel and a week of in-person co-working. This 3rd conference had a week of related satellite events, free shared accommodations for 50+ attendees, 2 days of parallel lectures/panels/unconferences, 80 unique sessions, of which 32 are available on Youtube, Swapcard to enable 1:1 connections, and a Slack community to continue conversations year [...] ---Outline:(00:32) Overview(00:35) Background(02:27) Outcomes(03:51) The Event(s)(04:19) Speaking Sessions(04:23) en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ Conference presentation scenes with speakers and audience in auditorium setting. The image shows a collage of different presentation scenes at what appears to be an academic or professional conference. The main image shows an auditorium with attendees watching a video presentation on a large screen. Other smaller images show speakers on stage in different settings - some seated in orange chairs for a panel discussion, others at podiums. Theres a logo visible for what appears to be a research institute in one of the frames. The setting appears academic/professional in nature, with proper presentation equipment, stage lighting, and organized seating arrangements typical of a conference or symposium event.(05:10) Featured Talks(10:13) Lightning Talks(11:55) Interactive Sessions(12:19) Unconferences(13:22) Meetups(13:36) Mapping Workshops(13:44) Office Hours(13:59) Topic Distribution(14:18) Satellite Events(14:41) en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ Events schedule showing AI and animal-focused activities from Feb 26-Mar 2.(14:52) en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ People gathered at social events, networking and dining in various settings.(15:02) Behind the Scenes(15:10) Personnel(16:04) Handbooks(16:24) Finances(19:21) Outreach(21:17) Event Reflection(24:12) Get Involved--- First published: April 5th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KWpyRXzHn6JMyZiBn/ai-for-animals-2025-bay-area-retrospective --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.