YouSaid · the spoken record

Lewis Bollard

lines on the record: 80
first: 2025-08-07
most recent: 2025-08-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah, I mean, I've visited factory farms, and I will say it is every bit as bad as it looks on the videos you can find online. It is every bit, I mean, the addition you see is, well, first you hear the noise, the distress yelps from these animals, you smells awful. But the other thing I noticed, I visited one egg factory farm, and it's impossible for farmers to provide individual care to each of these birds. This was a relatively well-run farm. And yet I still found a whole lot of hens stuck in the wire. And those hens are just going to slowly starve. Like there is no, and indeed many had. There were a lot of dead birds in with the live birds in other cages. And that's just because of the scales. Like one farmer is trying to look after 200,000 hens. The only thing they can actually do is check the feed lines and check the water lines and remove some of the dead birds. And in fact, that is the work of a factory farmer is largely removing dead animals.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree. I mean, this is the story of the chicken meat industry have just bred and bred so these animals suffer more and more. And I'll give you another example of that, which is the breeding birds. So the birds that are raised for meat are optimized to only survive until about seven or eight weeks of age. And even by that age, a lot of them are keeling over, getting lame, collapsing. But they're not at puberty yet. So they need to raise some of these birds past puberty to raise the next generation of birds. For those birds to not totally collapse under their genetics, they have to starve them. And so what they do is they give the breeding birds about 30% of the feed that the birds would eat on their own. So they're like starving them 70% because that is the only way to stop these birds from completely collapsing under the genetics that they've inflicted on them.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you disagree with that, no, no. So I think there is an in between ground solution now, which is the higher welfare breeds that we are advocating for producers to adopt are not 1950s growth levels. They grow almost at 2025 growth levels, scaled back slightly.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is what you see with the history of breeding these chickens to be the kind of mutants they are today, where they've achieved a 4x gain in growth rates since the 1950s. That has led to a 2x drop in price, and that has led to a 3x increase in consumption. And because consumption has gone up so dramatically and the suffering per bird has gone up so dramatically, that has outweighed the benefits of these birds being bigger.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then they were like, wow, it's great. Like, the chickens have stronger legs now, they can go and eat more stuff, and we can put more weight on those legs. Then they made them bigger and essentially undid those gains. In recent years, we've seen the mortality rate in the industry rising again and getting worse. So presumably they have just pushed so far again that direction. I think that's a major risk. I think this is why you need government or corporations involved. This is why you need government setting down a baseline standard saying you can't go below this welfare floor. For instance, in Denmark, the government is strongly encouraging the move toward these higher welfare breeds and looking to ban low welfare outcome breeds entirely. And you need to maintain those higher welfare outcomes. This is what you need in corporate supply chains too. So this is also what you see with the French retailers moving away from these low welfare breeds. You need them to maintain those standards because you're right, the industry left to on its own will always find a race to the bottom.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. This is the story of a lot of the industry's efforts to improve welfare. So, for example, there was a study back in the 90s where they taught chickens how to select pain relief laced feed. And they found the broiled chickens were all selecting the pain relief laced feed, suggesting they were all in chronic pain. And the industry said, like, don't worry, we'll address it, like, we'll strengthen their legs. So they went away and they strengthened their legs for a bit.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're slightly less economical. I mean, this is why, because they have been ruthlessly selected for those two variables of breast meat yield and feed conversion. So they cost a little bit more. And this is why you need advocacy to get people to adopt them, right? And so there has been huge advocacy in France, in Germany, in Denmark to get this. And in fact, just last month, the largest French chicken producer, the LDC group, committed to moving its two main brands to these higher welfare genetics.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the first thing about them is they are more balanced overall. So, where the industry has just selected for rapid breast meat growth and for really efficient feed conversion, these birds have been bred to have robustness. So they have broaden legs, so their legs don't collapse, they have better cardio systems, so they don't develop all these cardio problems. And in general, they've just been bred for welfare outcomes. We're just like, let's just breed a bunch of birds and find the ones that die less and generally sound.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, sure. And this is why you need a whole bunch of different approaches, right? Like, this is why, because there's no one solution that is going to satisfy everyone. And what I would say on genetics is what feels way more achievable to me in the near term is to get rid of the genetic physical problems that ail these animals. So for instance, we've bred these chickens to be mutants that collapse under their own weight. We know that we can breed for far higher welfare birds that are still commercially viable. And indeed, there are companies, and there are places like Denmark where the industry has already moved entirely toward these higher welfare birds, they have way better welfare outcomes. They suffer way less.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you're right. The suffering is uneconomical at the level of an individual animal. The animals that we have selected for and the way we have treated them result in more of those animals dying, more of them having all kinds of welfare problems. The problem is that it is collectively more efficient. So if you can cram twice as many animals into a barn, it doesn't matter if 10% more of them die. That's been the underlying model of this industry, is that the reason welfare gets neglected is it has a slight cost, but the efficiency gains are so much greater. I agree we should try and find things to reverse that. I mean, I am personally more optimistic about these kind of incremental reforms. I think the average person listening to this is not thinking like, oh yeah, I'm really pumped for the chicken, the brainless chickens to come along and just persuade me.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, think of what we've done to pigs. So when we took pigs inside from outdoors. And we selected them to grow faster and to have this inadvertent greater regression. The first thing they started doing was getting bored and biting each other's tails. And that was a problem. So then we said, we'll cut the tails off. Well, that didn't work. So then we had to start clipping the teeth and cutting part of their teeth off. And then that stool wasn't enough when it came to the sales. So then we had to put them in crates. To protect them from any other animal. And that wasn't enough, so then we gave them antibiotics and other drugs. At each step, there is a new solution that can't solve the fundamental underlying parts of the problem. And sometimes it just makes it worse.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is not invested in animal welfare. And as a result, you find these things it's doing that just seem archaic. Like the way that it is castrating piglets is with a blunt knife and no pain relief. And so in that case, there was a new technology of immunocastration, an injection that achieved the same effects, and it was very easy to develop. And so I think there are a whole lot of other practices like that out there. There are a whole lot of these archaic practices being done where someone could come in and with a little bit of smart work around this and an actual focus on animal welfare, bring in solutions that could potentially help billions of values.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think there's huge potential for technologists here. I mean, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit because this is primarily a commodity business that has only done things that reduce the price or increase production levels.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was both. So first there was some policy up front, which was because advocates had drawn attention to this practice of killing male chicks, there was real impetus by governments and philanthropists to support kick-starting this technology. And my estimate is it was about $10 million, very little amount of public and philanthropic money that kickstarted this technology, got it to a point where startups could start to implement the technology.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This new technology is basically the application of existing technologies to scan the eggs in advance and work out whether they're going to be male or female. And then you can just get rid of the male eggs very early in the incubation phase. And this technology went from 10 years ago just being a vague idea to today, it's already a third of the European egg industry. And just going to introduce the United States. We've got the first eggs coming out in the United States now. So, this is a technology that is growing rapidly, and I'm really optimistic can ultimately end this problem globally.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, the historical basis is a story of technology doing harm, which was we initially, the egg industry and the meat chicken industry separated. Because they realize they could grow meat chickens to be optimized for weight gain and laying hands to be optimized for laying eggs. That meant that the laying egg industry had no need of the male chicks because they couldn't lay eggs and they couldn't grow fast enough to be meat chickens. And so what they decided was to just kill them on the day they were born. And so the standard practice, and this is about 8 billion chicks globally every year, are just frond in a giant meat grinder or suffocated in bags the day they're born. Crazy.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Billions every year. Then there's corporate reforms, and we see the same thing, that there's this incredible scale across these corporate supply chains. I mean, McDonald's just implemented its pledge to go cage-free in the US. That alone is 7 million hens every year out of cages, just in the McDonald's supply chain. And then the third lever is technology. One example would be Innovo sexing as a new technology that can get rid of the need to kill male chicks in the egg industry. The unwanted chicks are killed at birth. In Novo sexing has already spared about 200 million chicks from that fate. So there are these giant drivers, and the good news is we're just getting started with them. There is the potential, I think, to help tens of billions of animals through these drivers.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think there have been three large-scale drivers of progress so far. So the first has been government policy. So advocates got the European Union to set basic animal welfare standards. That is billions of animals every year.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it's a puzzle. I mean, it seems so obvious that you can have far larger scale change at the level of governmental change and corporate change. And instead, we get fixated about whether someone is completely vegan or vegetarian. And I think what happened is when people started learning about this issue initially, it was just a few people. And they felt totally powerless to achieve larger scale change. And so they understandably focused on themselves. And then it started to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It started to become an end in itself where it was about personal purity as much as about the impact you're having on the issue. And it's much easier to measure your own personal purity than it is to measure your total impact on reforming factory farming. And so I think it just became this kind of inward focus. And the good news is I think that has changed tremendously in the last decade. I think the movement has gone from being one that was obsessed with personal purity, obsessed with dietary choices to one that is much more obsessed with impetus.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we made a mistake as a movement, making this about personal diet. I think it's great when folks want to make a personal diet decision, whether that is eating less meat or meat from a humane sources. But the focus should not be on the individual. This is not how large-scale social change occurs. I think we need government reform. I think we need corporate reform. And people can be a part of that regardless of what they eat, regardless of what their diet is. I think that we need people to be advocates and funders and supporters of this cause.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's good to do both. I think both of these are important. I think that I can see why alternative proteins have a more promising allure to investors first. It could be higher margins. But second, it feels more like the electric vehicle or the solar that just totally replaces the old practice. It's something totally new that replaces it. I think it has that potential for some portion of the market. But what I don't see happening anytime soon is the entire market switching over to these alternative proteins. And so I think we need alternative proteins to meet the world's growing demand for proteins so that we don't just have ever more factory farming. And we need humane technology to reduce the suffering within the factory farming that does exist.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That would be my guess. Whereas the venture capital on the alternative proteins has been in the billions over the last few years.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there's a huge difference. It's probably the venture capital on the humane technology is probably less than $10 million a year.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you'd think like Nanotech and bringing robotics and all these things, but unless the cost of all those things goes down to close to zero, chickens are just going to be so insanely cheap. And so, yeah, maybe. I think it is totally possible that these AGI technologies introduce incredible new proteins that help solve the problem for us. But I don't think we should rely on it. First, because they might not be able to solve some of these problems to the point that it is cheap as chicken, but second, because you still have these cultural and political barriers.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, it depends. Contention on HEI and contingent on what happens with AGI, right? I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't think it's the default path. I don't think it's the most likely archive.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it completely depends on what we do from here And it also depends on what you mean by cultivated meat. I mean, there are companies right now that are selling cultivated meat in very small volumes at very high price points, which is incredible. The challenge from here is how do you scale that and bring the price point down to compete with the incredibly low price point of factory farm chicken? And I think how long it takes to get there, and indeed whether we get there, really depends on what happens from here. We are not on a path right now when it comes to the amount of venture capital funding available, when it comes to the current startups available. We're not on a path to reach cultivated meat that is cheaper than factory-farmed chicken. I think we could get on that path”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So you're trying to beat the price of grain times two plus a few extra costs. That is actually a really hard target to meet. And that's why factory farmed chicken is so insanely cheap today.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the basic efficiency is the animal and the chicken in particular has evolved over. A very long time to be a being that can take in a relatively small amount of grain and convert it very efficiently into a form of protein that people like to eat. So the feed conversion ratio for chickens, the amount of grain you put in to get meat out is like 2, 2x. And that grain is incredibly cheap. And the rest of the production process is incredibly cheap because they've removed everything that costs money around treating the animals well and providing comfort and all their stuff. They've just gotten rid of it all. So they've gotten down to the point where it's insanely cheap.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is the debate. That's fair. This is a debate. But I don't think that's just the obstacle that people have. I think there are a lot of people who say, I'm just not interested in the alternative, I want the real thing. And then there's also the political obstacle. So let's say that AGI solves cultivated meat for us. Well, cultivated meat is already illegal in seven U.S. states. It might soon be illegal in the entire European Union. So by the time we get AGI, will they even be able to sell it anywhere? So again, I think there's a huge amount of good that technology can do in this space, and I'm optimistic that AGI can accelerate that hugely. But at the same time, I think we should prepare for the significant possibility that AGI does not end factory farming, that actually this is an incredibly efficient system that has persisted through all kinds of technological changes and that could persist through this technological change.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the end of factory farming is far from inevitable. Every year where factory farming about 2% more animals globally, I think there are two possible trajectories we could go down. One is the trajectory that we have been on for the last century, which is technology has made factory farming ever more efficient, resulted in ever more animals being abused and ever more intensive ways. There is a trajectory where we reduce the number of animals on factory farms, where we reduce the suffering of each of those animals. So even if we get AGI, I am really optimistic that that will accelerate forms of technological progress. It will bring us better alternative proteins. It will improve the humane technology. But there are still huge cultural and political obstacles to alternatives. So the cultural obstacles are that most people want real meat. I mean, most people have the option already of plant-based meat that tastes about as good as real meat. Does it? I don't know.”
2025-08-07 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source