I'm reminded of the novel "Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beauman, a deeply weird satire about the perverse incentives and behaviors engendered by the union of industrial consumption, market-based conservation, and the abstract calculus of ethics at scale.
In particular, one portion features an autonomous bioreactor which produces enormous clouds of "yayflies"; mayflies whose nervous systems have been engineered to experience constant, maximal pleasure. The system's designer asserts that, given the sheer volume of yayflies produced, they have done more than anyone in history to increase the absolute quantity of happiness in the universe.