The inventors of cars did not set out to end animal suffering, they wanted faster transport. The welfare of horses was an unintended byproduct of human innovation. The motorcar arguably did more to free animals from suffering than the RSPCA ever has. Today, the RSPCA’s “Assured” label serves mainly to legitimize industrial farming – offering moral comfort while sanctioning mass confinement and slaughter. The true liberation of animals will not come from moral reassurance but from technological transformation. Cultivated meat is perhaps the first major technology in history that intends to liberate animals – to decouple prosperity from cruelty and to build a livable future for all.
Imagine you are a villager in an early pastoral society. If you owned twenty animals, you were probably doing alright. Animals, particularly larger ones, were a store of wealth. The word capital comes from the Latin caput, meaning head – wealth was once measured by heads of livestock.
Today, we have more convenient ways to store and exchange wealth. Money – both physical and digital – has rendered livestock as currency obsolete. This is evidently for the best. I don’t imagine cows make the tidiest of flatmates, and it would be rather inconvenient to take a chicken along to the petrol station to exchange for a full tank (although at today’s prices, one lamb might be closer to the mark).
Technological innovation has gradually replaced the roles animals once played in human economies – as transport, labour, materials and food. To speak of animals in terms of “function” is, of course, to adopt a distinctly human lens; animals do not exist for us. They exist within ecosystems, as natural beings in their own right.
Today, only two enduring relationships remain: animals raised for meat and animals kept as companions. The former is defined by exploitation; the latter, at its best, by affection. Recognising how technology has displaced animals’ economic utility helps us see how it might one day release them from the final forms of exploitation that persist – most significantly in the production of meat and other animal-derived foods…
The inventors of kerosene and cars did not set out to end animal suffering. They wanted cheaper light and faster transport. Animal welfare was an unintended byproduct of human innovation. Cultivated meat, by contrast, is perhaps the first major technology in history that intends to liberate animals – to decouple prosperity from cruelty and to build a liveable future for all.
The motorcar arguably did more to free animals from suffering than the RSPCA ever has. Today, the RSPCA’s “Assured” label serves mainly to legitimise industrial farming – offering moral comfort while sanctioning mass confinement and slaughter. The true liberation of animals will not come from moral reassurance but from technological transformation.
We are again in a remarkable time of change. Artificial intelligence is reshaping the job market. New biotechnologies are transforming how we produce food, fuel and materials. These tools will define the century to come; our task is to ensure they define it for the best, not the worst.
If deployed wisely, technology can make the lives of people and animals better. It can strengthen our communities, restore nature and build a more resilient world capable of withstanding the shocks of war, famine and plague. Technology has liberated animals before, but always by accident. This time, we can do it consciously – designing a transition that is humane, ecological and just. SEB LOWE
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