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Vaniver comments on Arguments Against Speciesism - LessWrong
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What level of "potential" is required here? A human baby has a certain amount of potential to reach whatever threshold you're comparing it against - if it's fed, kept warm, not killed, etc. A pig also has a certain level of potential - if we tweak its genetics.
If we develop AI, then any given pile of sand has just as much potential to reach "human level" as an infant. I would be amused if improved engineering knowledge gave beaches moral weight (though not completely opposed to the idea).
Your proposed category - "can develop to contain morally relevant quantity X" - tends to fail along similar edge cases as whatever morally relevant quality it's replacing.
I have given a gradualist answer to every question related to this topic, and unsurprisingly I will not veer from that here. The value of the potential is proportional to the difficulty involved in realizing that potential, as the value of oil in the ground depends on what lies between you and it.