If the majority of minds with moral weight are the result of an intelligent mind's decision, then the link between complexity and frequency may be weak. Pain is a strong motivator for some things, even if it's bad at motivating creativity, so perhaps there would still be an incentive to create more pain. This is extremely speculative though.

The bigger worry would be that forces like Moloch and evolution may favor pain. Wild animals appear to have much more pain in their lives than pleasure. Even if the carrot was a more effective motivator than the stick f... (read more)