How We Will Achieve Animal Liberation Within Our Lifetime
Written by Sam Tucker, Founder of Open Paws
The Challenge of Animal Liberation
Whilst almost every animal advocate's goal is animal liberation, very few believe that they will achieve it in their lifetime. Given the sheer scale of animal exploitation and the difficulty in convincing even those closest to us to change their diets and lifestyles to help animals, this is completely understandable.
Sure, we can see some small gains happening slowly over time, such as more restaurants adding vegan options, more companies making animal welfare commitments, and more governments passing legislation to ban some of the most horrific practices of factory farming. But still, the total number of animals raised and killed for food continues to rise. Our movement might be making progress, but we're still not making progress fast enough to actually save any animals from factory farms. Instead, we're merely slowing the rate at which factory farming accelerates.
The Power of Exponential Growth
If you project our movement maintaining its current rate of growth into the future, it does seem that we will eventually slow the rate of acceleration of factory farming until it stops, then begins to decelerate. At this rate of change, maybe we could expect animal liberation to occur somewhere within the next few thousand years.
This approach is called "linear thinking," and it's the way we naturally tend to think about progress. We look at the rate of change we've seen in our life and assume it will continue more or less the same. When we apply this thinking to the fight for animal liberation, it's easy to see why so much of the movement doesn't think it could possibly happen within our lifetime.
Beyond Linear Thinking
Fortunately, radical social change doesn't occur on a linear timeline; it occurs on an exponential one. This applies to almost every element of human societies, from technological to cultural to ethical and more. The Industrial Revolution wasn't a period of thousands of years where we gradually made the same amount of technological advances each day; it was a rapid acceleration of one technology unlocking and enabling another. Similarly, the Enlightenment period began with slow, cautious exploration of ideas about reason, liberty, and individual rights, but once these ideas took root, they spread with remarkable speed, fundamentally transforming societies and paving the way for modern democratic principles.
The same can be said about all of the great social justice movements of the past. They often follow an S-curve pattern of adoption, characterized by three distinct phases:
Initial Slow Growth: In the beginning, adoption is gradual as a small segment of the population becomes aware of and begins to support the cause.
Rapid Exponential Growth: After the initial phase, support for the movement increases rapidly as more individuals join in, leading to significant momentum and widespread acceptance. This phase is where transformative change occurs almost overnight.
Plateau and Consolidation: Eventually, the movement reaches a point of saturation where most potential supporters have been engaged. This phase involves consolidating gains and maintaining support.
Historical case studies illustrate this pattern vividly. The women’s suffrage movement took decades to build initial support before experiencing a rapid surge in acceptance, culminating in significant legislative changes within a remarkably short timeframe. The civil rights movement saw public support expand dramatically during its peak, with acceptance and advocacy growing exponentially, leading to meaningful societal shifts in just a few years. Support for marriage equality also exemplified this pattern, as it increased slowly at first but then accelerated rapidly, particularly around key social and legal advancements.
This exponential growth reflects how social movements, once they gain traction, can achieve their goals far more rapidly than anyone expected. To put it another way, it's much harder (and takes much longer) to go from 0 to 1 than it is to go from 1 to 100. Fortunately for us, there is no doubt that the animal rights movement has already made it from 0 to 1.
The Beginning of Exponential Growth
As someone who's been vegan for 15 years, it's extremely clear to me that we have already reached the beginning of an exponential growth period as a movement. When I first went vegan, practically no one even knew what the word vegan meant and finding another vegan was extremely rare.
For the first 10 years, I saw very gradual, almost insignificant growth in the movement. By the end of that 10 year period, people had begun to have a general understanding of veganism, but it was still very rare to meet a vegan or find a vegan option in a restaurant.
But in the last 5 years, I've seen far more than double that amount of growth. Now, almost every restaurant has a vegan option, almost everyone knows at least one person who is vegan and veganism is something people see regularly discussed on both social and traditional media.
If going from 0 to 1 took us 10 years, then going from 1 to 3 only took 5. We made twice the progress in half the time.
If we think about this trend of exponential growth continuing mathematically, we should then expect to go from 3 to 7 in 2.5 years, 7 to 15 in 1.25 years, 15 to 31 in 0.75 years, 31 to 63 in 0.325 years and finally we reach 100 (animal liberation) within a total of less than 5 years from now.
The Future of Growth
To be clear, I don't think we will achieve animal liberation five years from now—that’s probably a bit too optimistic, even for me. My point here isn't to make an exact prediction, but to show the power of exponential growth. A single snowball can quickly turn into an avalanche once it moves past simply achieving or maintaining growth and reaches the point where its rate of growth is accelerating.
Our movement itself isn't the only part of modern society that is at the beginning of an exponential growth curve. It's extremely clear that's also where we are with technology.
Technology as an Exponential Force
The rapid rate of progress we've seen in alternative proteins is one clear example of this. Cultivated meat went from being literally impossible to being available commercially in a small number of restaurants, all in a very short amount of time. When I first went vegan, I remember animal rights organizations making April Fools' jokes about developing lab meat because it seemed so impossible.
I also remember "mock meats" being nothing more than tofu or beans mushed together into the shape of a sausage. In both cases, I've seen the same trend where growth was extremely slow for the first 10 years, and then in the next 5 years we saw more than double the progress in half the time.
Another example, perhaps an even more extreme one, is the progress being made with artificial intelligence. Language models were practically unusable and unheard of outside of tech circles just five years ago. Now, the size of the models, the amount of data they're trained on, and the number of models available are all growing exponentially.
AI's Potential for Animal Advocacy
We already know that current AI systems are more persuasive than the average human being on political and social issues. As they continue to improve exponentially and we begin to apply them to our exponentially growing movement, the potential impact for animals cannot be overstated.
The rate of change that's possible in our lifetimes is completely unlike anything else ever previously experienced by humanity. Once you truly understand this and look at the acceleration of growth already beginning in the animal rights movement, animal liberation within our lifetimes doesn't just seem possible-it almost seems inevitable.
Overcoming Obstacles
But of course, it isn't inevitable. We do, after all, have a very powerful adversary: the animal exploitation industry. They're also trying to leverage this time of exponential growth for their own destructive purposes.
Given the importance of exponential growth, our strategy should be twofold: accelerating our own growth rate and decelerating that of our adversary.
This means we need to start thinking at a systems level, not merely an individual one. Sure, convincing anyone about the importance of animal rights will always have some positive feedback loop attached, but convincing someone in a position of power will have a much larger one, due to all the people they affect or influence. Convincing an individual to eat a vegan meal is great, but convincing a restaurant to start selling a new vegan meal is much better. Getting a non-vegan to become a vegan is certainly impactful, but getting a vegan to become an active and effective advocate for animals may be orders of magnitude more impactful.
But applying a systems-thinking approach goes beyond simply looking for the actions with the largest impacts. We have to consider how these actions affect each other as well. The best action isn't just the one with the largest impact, it's the one that enables an even wider range of future actions with larger impacts themselves. So how can we ensure every action not only has the largest possible impact, but also creates a world where the next action will have an even bigger one?
The Role of Artificial Intelligence
Let's take the example of convincing a restaurant to sell more vegan options.
If we automate this through email outreach with AI, then use AI to track and analyse the responses, it can uncover for itself the patterns behind successful and non successful outreach attempts. Then, it can use that information to improve it's outreach, which gives it more data to analyse to improve itself further and the cycle of improvement continues.
Meanwhile, the same patterns it learns for personalised predictions can be extended to any other possible campaign target, such as politicians, financial institutions, celebrities, influencers and more. As the system self improves and expands its outreach, it simultaneously becomes more powerful and cheaper to run due to decreasing the time to get a successful response (as it has to do less revisions and research to succeed in its outreach).
Freeing up this time that animal advocates would usually spend on email outreach enables them to focus more on other mission-critical tasks, which makes the movement as a whole more productive. As the movement becomes more productive whilst the "barrier to entry" for veganism drops (thanks to all the new vegan options everywhere), more people get brought into the movement.
They in turn bring in more funding and volunteer power, which grows the movement further. These new advocates also bring new ideas and perspectives into the movement, which encourages new applications of the AI, which enables it to learn more, which enables it succeed at a wider range of goals.
This is what exponential growth looks like in practise.
Enabling AI to Find High-Impact Interventions
But perhaps we could take it a step further. What if the AI itself could learn and optimize how to find even better interventions? What if it could analyze enormous, complex systems to figure out the most crucial points in the system where positive feedback loops have the most potential to grow into significant change for animals?
Harnessing Collective Knowledge Through AI
Think about all the collective knowledge we have as a movement. It's hard to get your head around the sheer volume of knowledge that exists out there, and there's certainly no way you could ever learn all that yourself. But AI doesn't have our same human limitations. Our human minds can only store so much data, but computers can store practically infinite amounts. They can analyze and learn from that data in ways that are far beyond our own brains. By unleashing that power towards the goal of animal liberation, our movement's potential impact is limitless.
We can already get some pretty incredible gains in exponential growth from simply utilising existing AI tools in our advocacy for animals, but using tools specifically designed for that advocacy that continually learn and improve as we use them would amplify those gains to unimaginable heights.
The more powerful the system becomes, the more advocates would use it, which would in turn make the system more powerful. We would then have more success at our various campaign goals, which grows and strengthens the movement, makes more resources available to us, provides more data and ultimately, makes the system again more powerful, leading to yet another positive feedback loop accelerating exponential growth.
Targeting Strategic Hubs
To maximize this potential, instead of attempting to convince every individual globally to adopt veganism, we can focus our efforts on a core group of cities where concentrated advocacy can yield significant results. These cities are not just locally influential, they are global influencers with the potential to set trends that ripple throughout entire regions and beyond.
By shifting the narrative in just 20 key cities, we can create a cascading effect that transforms perceptions and practices on a much larger scale.
Key Hubs for Global Change
New York: As the home of the United Nations, influencing animal welfare policies here can set international standards, inspiring other countries to follow suit. With New York leading the charge, we can catalyze global movements for animal rights.
Washington, D.C.: By engaging with the World Bank and the OAS, we can advocate for funding and policies that prioritize animal welfare, prompting systemic changes across the Americas.
Brussels: The EU's headquarters allows us to shape comprehensive animal protection laws. As other nations observe Europe’s leadership in this area, they may be compelled to adopt similar policies.
London: With organizations like the ICC and OECD, influencing corporate practices in London can lead to ethical supply chains worldwide. The adoption of animal-friendly policies by major corporations can inspire similar changes across their global networks.
Paris: By working with UNESCO to promote animal rights within educational frameworks and collaborating with the ICC on ethical business standards, we can embed compassion for animals into cultural and corporate values that resonate globally.
Rome: The FAO's commitment to sustainable food policies makes Rome an ideal target for promoting plant-based agriculture, setting a precedent for global food security initiatives that prioritize animal welfare.
Geneva: Influencing the WHO and WTO can link animal welfare with public health, demonstrating that compassionate practices benefit human health. This connection can sway policymakers worldwide to consider animal rights in their agendas.
Beijing: Engaging with China’s rapid development allows us to promote plant-based diets and sustainable practices among a burgeoning middle class. Change here can reverberate through Asia, affecting billions.
Singapore: As the headquarters of APEC, advocating for cooperative animal welfare initiatives can lead to regional commitments that amplify our message across multiple nations.
Jakarta: By influencing ASEAN's policies, we can drive humane treatment of animals throughout Southeast Asia, benefiting millions of animals and creating a regional standard.
Dubai: Promoting veganism in this trade hub can create narratives that influence travelers and businesses worldwide, leveraging its global connections to spread ethical consumption.
Moscow: Engaging with post-Soviet states can drive reforms in animal welfare as the region modernizes, with Moscow setting the tone for neighboring countries.
Nairobi: As the hub for the UN Environment Programme, advocating for animal rights here can catalyze change across Africa, fostering regional collaboration that elevates standards.
Addis Ababa: The UN Economic Commission for Africa provides an opportunity to influence policies that advance animal welfare, creating a powerful precedent for the continent.
Brasilia: Through the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, we can promote sustainable practices in Brazil, impacting agriculture policies that affect vast swathes of the rainforest.
Silicon Valley: By influencing tech companies developing AI, we can integrate animal welfare into algorithms and applications, creating tools that amplify our advocacy efforts and optimize outreach strategies.
Hollywood: Collaborating with filmmakers can reshape cultural narratives around animal exploitation, making compassionate choices appealing to a global audience.
New Delhi: In India’s rapidly evolving economy, we can galvanize support for animal rights among a diverse population, encouraging widespread dietary shifts that can lead to significant change.
Tokyo: Engaging with Japan’s influential cultural sectors can promote veganism through popular media, driving societal acceptance and action.
Bangkok: As a key Southeast Asian hub, promoting animal welfare here can create regional impacts, influencing surrounding countries and industries.
By concentrating our advocacy efforts in these hubs, we can create powerful network effects. Change in one city can inspire similar actions in nearby regions and beyond, as trends in consumption, policy, and public sentiment shift rapidly through interconnected networks. This exponential growth means that even modest initial changes can lead to significant shifts in attitudes and practices, ultimately transforming societal norms around animal rights.
Transforming Global Hubs
To maximize our impact in key global hubs and accelerate the adoption of pro-animal policies, we need a strategic approach that goes beyond simply contacting decision-makers. We need to create a social context where pro-animal messages resonate and are more readily accepted. This involves a two-phased approach, driven by our AI-powered system:
Phase 1: Building the Foundation
Imagine Brussels, the heart of European Union policy-making, transformed into a hub of pro-animal sentiment. Restaurants boast extensive plant-based menus, media regularly portrays veganism in a positive light, and the social norm reflects a preference for cruelty-free living. This is the environment we aim to create – a foundation where pro-animal ideas are woven into the fabric of society, increasing the receptiveness to our message.
Our pilot campaign targeting restaurant owners demonstrates this approach in action. By sending personalized emails written by AI, we encouraged restaurants to introduce more vegan options. With a minimal investment of under $50, we secured commitments from 8 different restaurants to expand their plant-based offerings. This translates to potentially saving thousands of animals annually, showcasing the power of influencing key sectors to create a ripple effect of change at an extraordinarily low cost with AI.
Phase 2: Targeted Outreach
Once this foundation is established, our AI-powered system can target influential figures within these hubs. Decision-makers, constantly exposed to the "new normal" of widespread vegan acceptance, become more receptive to our message. They see pro-animal policies not as radical shifts, but as reflections of an evolving society. This creates a sense of inevitability, encouraging them to embrace pro-animal policies and accelerate their adoption, even if the rest of the region or country is not yet on board.
We've seen early success with our AI-powered outreach to politicians and financial institutions. Within just 9 days of running an entirely automated campaign, we secured commitments from an Assemblyman drafting a bill for tax incentives for vegan businesses, a State Representative supporting plant-based lunches in schools, and a financial institution integrating animal welfare into their ESG metrics. These early wins highlight the potential of AI-driven outreach to influence high-impact individuals and drive systemic change.
By combining the groundwork of widespread vegan acceptance with targeted outreach to decision-makers, we create a powerful synergy that amplifies our impact. This two-phased approach, driven by AI, allows us to efficiently and effectively transform global hubs into centers of pro-animal advocacy, with ripple effects extending far beyond their borders.
The Importance of Local Activism
While focusing on key global hubs is essential for creating sweeping changes in animal rights and veganism, it’s equally important to recognize the critical role of local activism. Grassroots movements, community engagement, and localized advocacy are the bedrock upon which global movements can build.
Building Foundations for Change
Local activism allows us to tailor our messaging and strategies to resonate with specific communities. By understanding and addressing local cultural norms, dietary habits, and social dynamics, we can create advocacy that feels relevant and achievable. This localized approach makes it easier for individuals to connect with the cause and see the potential for change within their own lives. For instance, a campaign promoting plant-based diets might emphasize traditional recipes adapted to be vegan, thereby honoring cultural heritage while encouraging healthier, cruelty-free choices.
Moreover, local activists can help identify and dismantle barriers to veganism that may not be apparent in global discourses. By engaging with their communities, they can uncover challenges related to access, affordability, and cultural acceptance of vegan options. This insight allows for the development of targeted interventions that meet the needs of local populations, ultimately laying a stronger foundation for the larger movement.
Creating Culturally Resonant Messaging
Culturally resonant messaging is crucial in ensuring that advocacy efforts are effective and impactful. Local activists can craft narratives that reflect the values, beliefs, and priorities of their communities. This not only fosters a sense of ownership over the cause, but also empowers more local individuals to become advocates themselves.
Additionally, local activism can serve as a testing ground for strategies that may later be implemented on a larger scale. Successful community-based initiatives can be scaled up and adapted for other regions, contributing to a shared pool of knowledge and strategies that drive the movement forward.
The Ripple Effect of Local Change
Change in local contexts can have a ripple effect, influencing perceptions and behaviors beyond immediate neighborhoods. As communities begin to adopt more compassionate practices, these shifts can inspire others in neighboring areas and even contribute to the broader narrative of animal rights on a national or global scale. Local activists often serve as the first point of contact for individuals curious about veganism, and their enthusiasm can spark interest and engagement that may not have otherwise occurred.
Moreover, building a strong local base creates a network of advocates who can mobilize quickly in response to emerging issues or challenges. This agility can be particularly powerful in countering the efforts of the animal exploitation industry, as a unified local voice can effectively challenge harmful practices and policies.
Strengthening the Global Movement
Ultimately, local activism and key global hubs are not mutually exclusive; they complement and reinforce one another. As we cultivate change in local communities, we create a rich soil from which larger movements can grow. The strategies and successes of local activists provide valuable lessons and insights that can inform global efforts, ensuring that they are culturally sensitive and resonant.
Building the Future of Advocacy
At Open Paws, we're working to create this exponential growth in practice. We recognize that the path to animal liberation requires not just strategic thinking and targeted activism, but also the tools to amplify our impact. That's why we're focused on creating AI systems that understand and advocate for animal rights, enabling us to scale our message and influence far beyond what traditional activism alone could achieve.
Our work represents the practical implementation of the systems-level thinking we've discussed. Rather than focusing solely on individual advocacy, we're building infrastructure that can exponentially increase our movement's effectiveness across all types of campaigns. Through our platform, anyone who cares about animals can contribute to training AI systems that will advocate for animals across languages, cultures, and contexts.
Two Ways to Accelerate Animal Liberation
We've created two primary ways for individuals and organizations to participate in this transformation:
First, if you have a computer and compassion for animals, you can help train AI through our ranking interface. By evaluating AI responses and content related to animal rights, welfare, and veganism, you help shape AI systems that better understand and advocate for our cause. We're particularly proud that this works across nearly 150 languages, helping ensure our movement's messaging resonates globally.
Second, if you're an organization or content creator, you can donate your existing data to strengthen AI training. Whether you have social media content, campaign materials, or analytics data, these contributions help AI systems learn from real-world advocacy experiences. We offer both public and private data sharing options, ensuring you can contribute while maintaining appropriate privacy controls.
Breaking Down Language Barriers
The multilingual nature of our initiative is particularly crucial to us. We know that more than 80% of the world's population doesn't speak English, and it's not the native language for almost 95% of the world's population. That's why we're committed to creating culturally aware AI systems that can scale across linguistic and cultural barriers that have traditionally limited our reach.
Creating Exponential Impact Together
By participating in our initiatives, you're not just training AI – you're accelerating the exponential growth of our movement. Every piece of feedback, every dataset shared, contributes to creating more effective advocacy tools. These tools can then be deployed across our key global hubs and local communities, creating cascading effects that amplify our impact.
Join Us in Shaping Tomorrow
At Open Paws, we see the convergence of exponential technological growth and our movement's increasing momentum as an unprecedented opportunity. Together, we can harness this potential to create tools that accelerate our progress toward animal liberation. By contributing your knowledge, experience, and data, you're not just hoping for change – you're actively building the systems that will make it inevitable.
The time to get involved is now. Whether you're an individual advocate or represent an organization, your contribution to training AI through Open Paws helps create the future we envision: a world where animal liberation isn't just possible within our lifetimes, but inevitable.
Join us today to start making your impact.
