Animal Politics and AI | Rising Anxieties

This week, we cover a parasitic worm inching through Texas via a dead elk on a game ranch, ChatGPT’s suspicious habit of painting factory farms as pastoral paradises, a Tyson mobile barn designed to gaslight children, the UK’s surprising willingness to ditch meat for food security, and a New York Post columnist who thinks banning carriage horses is socialism. Also: factory farms are legally exempt from telling you they’re poisoning the air, and yes, you did read that correctly.

• Screwworm hits wildlife: The parasite showed up in an elk on a Texas game ranch, and one USDA strategy seems to be asking hunters to “stay alert,” which should work out great
• AI is laundering factory farm imagery: ChatGPT quietly rewrites prompts to generate idyllic farm scenes instead of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) users actually asked for. Very convenient for an industry that already spends millions on the same illusion
• Tyson’s “Talks Turkey” mobile barn: A traveling exhibit that shows kids a tiny cart with a few turkeys and calls it representative of poultry production; one child asked if the birds would be “murdered,” and the welfare specialist did not share his answer
• UK food security & plant-based diets: A Vegan Society poll found 69% of Brits would reduce meat and dairy to improve food security, the argument that might actually stick when climate and health haven’t
• Factory farms exempt from air pollution reporting: The EPA lets CAFOs skip reporting ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions, both of which can hospitalize or kill you, while every other industry has to disclose

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