Could AI Unlock the Secrets of Animal Communication?

Summary

In this exploration of animal communication, Professor Hannah Fry delves into the potential of AI to decode the complex languages of various species, from dogs using buttons to express emotions to the intricate sounds of whales and elephants. The documentary highlights the challenges and ethical considerations of AI's role in cross-species communication, including the innovative 'Beehive Fence' that uses elephant vocalizations to deter them from crops, showcasing how understanding animal languages can lead to conservation solutions and a deeper connection with the natural world.

Takeaways

• 🌳 The African Savannah is a unique place where wilderness and urban life coexist, with wild animals like rhinos and hippos living close to cities like Nairobi.
• 🐘 Human expansion has led to a shrinking habitat for wildlife, resulting in animals having to adapt to sharing spaces with humans.
• 🔎 Scientists are using artificial intelligence to decode the complex communication between different animal species, revealing a level of complexity previously unknown.
• 🐶 Dogs like Cash, who uses a button board to communicate, show potential for animal-human interaction, though the scientific community remains skeptical about the depth of this communication.
• 🤖 AI, specifically the Transformer model, is being utilized to analyze and potentially translate animal sounds, offering a new approach to understanding animal communication.
• 🐳 The Earth Species Project is working with AI to decode communication in nonhuman species, aiming to translate across different modalities like audio and motion.
• 🎶 AI's ability to separate and understand individual animal sounds, like the 'cocktail party problem' for humans, is being applied to animal communication.
• 🐘 Elephant seals have unique calls that may represent their 'names', and AI could help uncover more about these individual identifiers.
• 🚫 There are ethical considerations and potential risks in using AI to communicate with animals, such as causing distress or impacting ecosystems.
• 🌐 The ultimate goal of understanding animal communication is to improve human-animal relationships and contribute to conservation efforts.

Q & A

What is the significance of the African Savannah in the context of the script?

The African Savannah is significant as it represents a place where wilderness is in close proximity to urban areas, symbolizing the shrinking gap between human and animal habitats, leading to shared spaces between wildlife and humans.

How does the script describe the current state of communication between humans and animals?

The script suggests that communication between humans and animals, particularly dogs, is often one-sided and not fully understood, with humans trying to interpret animal behavior and sounds.

What role does artificial intelligence play in decoding animal communication according to the script?

Artificial intelligence, specifically the Transformer model, is portrayed as a powerful tool that can help decode complex animal communications by analyzing patterns and relationships in data, much like the Rosetta Stone did for ancient languages.

What is the 'cocktail party problem' mentioned in the script?

The 'cocktail party problem' refers to the challenge of distinguishing a single voice or sound from a complex background of noise, which AI is working to solve for both human and animal sounds.

How does the script illustrate the potential of AI in animal communication through the example of Cash the dog?

Cash the dog is shown using a button board to communicate with his owner, suggesting that AI could potentially decode and interpret such interactions, leading to a better understanding of animal emotions and needs.

What is the Earth Species Project and how does it relate to AI?

The Earth Species Project is a nonprofit organization that collaborates with multiple institutions and biologists to decode communication in nonhuman species. It aims to use AI to translate across different modalities of animal communication, such as audio and motion.

What ethical concerns are raised by the script regarding AI and animal communication?

The script raises concerns about the potential for AI to cause distress to animals or to disrupt natural behaviors and ecosystems if not carefully managed, suggesting the need for ethical guidelines similar to a 'Geneva Convention' for cross-species communication.

How does the script present the idea of using AI to prevent human-elephant conflict in Kenya?

The script describes a method where the sound of bees, which elephants fear, is used to deter them from approaching human settlements. This concept is expanded upon with the idea of using AI to further understand and replicate these deterrent sounds more effectively.

What is the 'Beehive fence' mentioned in the script and how does it work?

The 'Beehive fence' is an innovative solution where hives or dummy hives are hung along a wire border around farmers' crops. If an elephant disturbs the wire, it releases the sound of angry bees, which scares the elephants away, thus preventing conflict.

What does the script suggest about the future of AI in understanding animal communication?

The script suggests that while AI holds promise in decoding and understanding animal communication, the true challenge lies in humans being willing to listen and engage with the natural world, implying that technology is only a tool and not a solution in itself.

Outlines

00:00

🌿 Urban Wildlife and AI in Nairobi

The script opens with a scene set in Nairobi, highlighting the unique proximity of urban life to wilderness. It discusses the shrinking spaces for wild animals due to human population growth and the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to decode animal communications. Professor Hannah Fry, a mathematician and writer, introduces her quest to understand if AI can decode the languages of other species. The narrative shifts to a dog named Cash, who communicates with his owner using a button board, suggesting a deeper emotional understanding between humans and animals. Despite skepticism from some researchers, the interaction showcases the potential for meaningful communication, even if it's not entirely clear-cut.

05:01

🐾 Exploring Animal Communication with AI

This paragraph delves into the use of AI, specifically Transformers, to understand animal communication. It explains how Transformers work by mapping data into a multi-dimensional space, allowing for the encoding of relational meanings between words. The script suggests that this technology could be a modern-day Rosetta Stone for decoding animal languages. It also touches on the complexity of animal sounds, such as those made by Prairie dogs, budgies, and Humpback whales, and how AI could help scientists make sense of these communications. The Earth Species Project is introduced, which aims to decode communication across nonhuman species, using AI to translate between different modalities of animal communication.

10:03

🔊 The Challenge of Collecting Animal Communication Data

The script discusses the difficulties in collecting and interpreting data on animal communication. It emphasizes the need for AI to learn the syntax and individual sounds of animals to separate and understand their communications. The narrative includes an example of AI being used to continue a bird's song, akin to autocomplete for animal communication. There's a cautionary note about the potential risks of misusing this technology, such as distressing animals or disrupting ancient communication traditions. The importance of understanding the context and the ethical considerations of AI in animal communication are highlighted.

15:05

🐘 Elephant Seals and Their Communication

This section focuses on the study of elephant seals and their communication patterns, particularly during mating season. It describes the seals' approach to romance and the unique 'names' they seem to use when communicating. The script introduces biologist Caroline Casey, who has discovered that male elephant seals use a specific rhythm and 'tomora' to call out to each other. The narrative suggests that AI could help uncover patterns in animal communication that humans might miss, but it also emphasizes the importance of direct observation and understanding individual animals.

20:06

🐝 Beehive Fences and Elephant Communication

The final paragraph discusses a practical application of understanding animal communication: the Beehive fence. Inspired by folklore that elephants fear bees, Dr. Lucy King used recordings of bees to deter elephants from approaching crops. The script explains how she recorded elephant rumbles and discovered a specific sound that causes elephants to react as if bees are present. This led to the creation of a fence system that releases bee sounds to protect crops and keep elephants safe. The narrative concludes by reflecting on the potential of AI to enhance our understanding of animals and the importance of using this knowledge responsibly for conservation.

Keywords

💡African Savannah

The African Savannah refers to the vast grassland ecosystems in Africa, characterized by a mix of grasses and scattered trees. In the video, the African Savannah is depicted as a place where wilderness meets urban life, with wild animals like rhinos and hippos sharing their spaces with the growing human population in Nairobi. This setting highlights the theme of coexistence and the challenges that arise from the intersection of human and wildlife habitats.

💡Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. In the context of the video, AI is portrayed as a tool that can help decode animal communication, suggesting a future where technology might bridge the gap between human and animal worlds. The video discusses how AI, particularly the Transformer model, could be used to understand complex animal languages.

💡Transformer

A Transformer is a type of AI model that processes large datasets and maps them into a multi-dimensional space, encoding relational meaning between data points. In the video, Transformers are described as the engine behind AI applications like chatbots and are suggested as a potential key to decoding animal languages by understanding the relationships and contexts in their communications, much like how the Rosetta Stone was used to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs.

💡Animal Communication

Animal Communication refers to the various methods by which animals exchange information with each other, including vocalizations, body language, and chemical signals. The video explores the complexity of animal communication, suggesting that it may be more intricate than previously understood. It discusses how AI could help scientists analyze and interpret these communications, potentially leading to a deeper understanding of animal societies.

💡Cocktail Party Problem

The Cocktail Party Problem in AI refers to the challenge of separating and identifying individual sounds within a complex auditory environment. In the video, this problem is mentioned in relation to understanding animal communication, where AI needs to discern individual animal voices and their meanings from a mix of sounds, similar to how humans can pick out individual conversations in a noisy room.

💡Elephant Seals

Elephant Seals are large marine mammals known for their unique vocalizations and social behaviors. The video discusses research on elephant seals, suggesting that they may have a complex system of communication that includes calling out their own 'names'. This example illustrates the potential for AI to uncover hidden layers of meaning in animal communication.

💡Human-Animal Conflict

Human-Animal Conflict refers to the clashes that occur between humans and animals, often due to competition for resources or space. The video touches on this issue, particularly in the context of human-elephant conflict in Kenya, where elephants raid crops and farmers retaliate, leading to harm for both parties. The video suggests that understanding animal communication could help mitigate such conflicts.

💡Beehive Fence

A Beehive Fence is an innovative solution mentioned in the video to prevent elephants from raiding crops by using their fear of bees. The fence is equipped with devices that emit the sound of an agitated beehive when disturbed, scaring the elephants away. This concept demonstrates how understanding animal behavior and communication can lead to non-lethal and effective conservation strategies.

💡Conservation

Conservation refers to the preservation and protection of the natural environment and wildlife. The video emphasizes the importance of understanding animal communication for conservation efforts, suggesting that such understanding could lead to more effective strategies for protecting endangered species and their habitats.

💡Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient artifact that played a crucial role in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the video, the term is used metaphorically to describe the potential of AI to act as a 'key' to understanding animal languages, just as the Rosetta Stone was key to unlocking the understanding of an ancient human language.

Highlights

The African Savannah's unique proximity to urban areas like Nairobi creates a shared space for humans and wildlife.

AI is being used to decode complex animal communications, including those between different species.

Professor Hannah Fry explores the possibility of using AI to understand and communicate with animals.

Dogs like Cash use buttons to communicate, suggesting they might understand human language and emotions.

Despite skepticism, some researchers believe dogs can use button boards to communicate beyond basic commands.

AI's 'Transformer' model could be the key to understanding animal languages, similar to how the Rosetta Stone unlocked hieroglyphs.

AI's ability to map data into multi-dimensional spaces allows it to understand relationships between words, aiding in translation and communication.

The Earth Species Project is working with AI to decode communication in nonhuman species, like whales and bats.

AI is being trained to separate and understand individual animal sounds, akin to solving the 'cocktail party problem'.

AI's potential to converse with animals raises ethical concerns about interfering with natural communication and ecosystems.

Elephant seals use unique calls to communicate, possibly indicating personal names or identities.

AI could help uncover subtle patterns in animal communication that humans might miss.

In Kenya, researchers use AI to address human-elephant conflict by playing bee sounds to scare elephants away from crops.

Dr. Lucy King's research reveals elephants have a specific rumble sound that signals fear of bees.

The 'Beehive fence' is a simple yet effective solution to reduce human-elephant conflict using recorded bee sounds.

AI development in animal communication could lead to significant advancements in conservation efforts.

Despite technological advancements, the importance of human engagement and appreciation for other species remains crucial.

There is skepticism about the extent to which AI can truly facilitate meaningful communication with animals.

Transcripts

there aren't many cities in the world

with Wilderness on their doorstep but

this is the African Savannah so five

Rhino big train bridge in the distance

and uh just in that direction there you

got the City Heights of

Nairobi as the human population has

grown wild animals have been forced to

share their spaces but while the

physical distance might have married

there remains a gap between their world

and ours it's a hippo or at least we

think there is oh there's another one

there we haven't exactly been able to

ask what they

think unbelievable and then the birds

here talking to each

[Music]

other today artificial intelligence is

helping scientists to explore the croaks

the chirps and the hounds that pass

between and across different

species revealing Communications of

Staggering

complexity I'm Professor Hannah fry

mathematician and

writer I want to know whether we can

decode the language of other species and

perhaps even speak to them with the

power of AI

[Music]

oh I can see a Waggy tail any story

about animal communication should surely

start with our closest Furry Friends how

you

doing look we're matching they might

make the best companions but our

conversations with them have always been

a bit one-sided

to show her the

house this is the thing that most people

are interested in this is his

board this is Cash Cash has quite the

social media following as he is able to

communicate via buttons Grandma friend

want how many do you think that he knows

there's maybe 130 but basically

everything over here if I press any of

these we're going to see quite a large a

large response the w k button is on this

side okay sure and if there was hasn't

learned how to spell yet no he has not

this visitor the board is designed with

social words like hello and goodbye at

one end and verbs nouns and places at

the

other and according to Christina she and

cash can use it to converse hey Bubba

can I ask you a question do you want a

bone

[Music]

yes

yes okay you want a BN oh you clever

doggy there you go swee but every dog

understands the word bone right what

would be more impressive is if cash

communicated not just what he wants but

how he feels okay so I asked him you

want to be brushed right now cuz he was

just hovering over this brush

he said no I'm

sad that didn't make sense to me so I

asked why are you sad and he said I'm

sick sick you're sick and he didn't seem

sick uh but we went over the couch we

cuddled and you're going to see him barf

right next to

me oh wow oh yeah sorry there is fine

[Music]

okay maybe we're doing a human

interpretation of this but but that is

like understanding your own internal

emotional state do you think that

actually the dogs have a much more

intelligent inner life than we give them

credit for he absolutely seems to care

about things I never had any idea about

the frequency with which my parents

visit very meaningful to him if they've

gone a couple days and they have not

visited him I start to a grandparent

requests while many of us want to

believe that we can have a meaningful

conversation with our parents

some researchers have doubts about what

the use of button boards really

shows it is not an exact science by any

means and I and we actually get a lot of

push back on that because people want it

to be very clear and very linear what I

will say without a doubt is that what's

Happening Here is communication and that

to me is very very

valuable so far little research has been

published but there is some evidence

that dogs can combine buttons together

to create new meanings Cash

Cash oh yeah you gorgeous boy and

regardless of the science Christina's

motivation is to build a better

relationship with her

dog I think cash and his relationship

with Christina super cute but I also

think that the jury is out on this about

whether this is just sophisticated

begging or a real form of communic ation

what's interesting is the language

because this is Cash learning English I

think if you're going to claim to have

really cracked animal communication I

think we also have to learn how to speak

dog and that is where artificial

intelligence comes

in the discovery of the Rosetta Stone

that was the key that unlocked Egyptian

hieroglyphs and the language of an

ancient

civilization unfortunately when it comes

to communicating with animals it's

unlikely that we're going to find

another one but there is some hope that

lies in an incredibly powerful piece of

AI architecture known as a Transformer

now Transformers are now ubiquitous they

are the engine that drives chatbots like

gp4 and they work by taking reams of

data text for instance and mapping it

into a multi-dimensional space a bit

like a galaxy of stars in this galaxy

each star represents a word but

crucially the distance and Direction

between the Stars encodes relational

meaning for example the geometric space

between Queen and woman will be the same

as Princess and girl this ability to

track relationships between words gives

Transformers their superpower it's what

helps them to make sense of things like

context and structure and Incredibly if

you map different languages from around

the world even ones as different as

English versus U they all form very

similar geometric shapes meaning if you

transpose one map over the other you can

seamlessly translate from one language

to another just like a Rosetta Stone

with the discovery of this hidden

mathematical structure scientists can

begin to venture into an alien world to

decode animal

communication and perhaps even to speak

back

[Music]

from birds to

bats frogs to Humpback

whales the complexity of animal sounds

is astonishing research shows Prairie

docks can describe what their predators

look like budgies use sounds akin to

consonants and vowels and with Decades

of data collected by scientists just

waiting for AI to decode it these kinds

of discoveries could be just the

beginning

[Music]

I mean this is an extraordinary building

yeah thank you this is AAR Raskin a

brain this is a a real a real human

brain a real real one yeah a real real

one he co-founded the Earth species

project a nonprofit that tries to decode

Communication in nonhuman

species we work with like 40 plus

institutions and like 800 biologists um

and they record as you see here like

video they record audio they record

motion how the animals move and so what

that lets us start to do is to translate

to and from all the different modalities

what does one whale say that causes

another whale to dive in terms of the

first step of that then like trying to

uncover existing patterns in the data

that you're collecting like do you see

that there's a particular noise that

whales make when another whale Dives

yeah yeah yeah um this uh these are a

couple Beluga communicating while

hunting go

on sounds like radio static right

or an alien modem yes an alien modem I

like that a lot yeah I mean that I could

listen to that for 100 years and never

make sense of it correct yeah and mind

scientists haven't been able to make

sense of it but we're at the cusp of

having the tools to learn how to like

disambiguate to like solve What's called

the cocktail party

problem the cocktail party problem is

the task of picking out a single voice

from the background of bus please could

you tell me where the nearest Tube

Station is I'm just not sure of the

directions AI has nearly solved it for

human voices but the progress for

Animals has been a little

slower even before you've started trying

to understand what an individual animal

is talking about in an individual

situation even collecting the data of a

single animal speaking is really hard

yeah and so you have to teach an AI what

does an individual animal sound like

what is the syntax and once it learns

that then it tries to do lots of

separations and it's like oh is this a

good separation so be able to translate

all of that data into meaning is what

enables us to start doing this kind of

work it's a little bit like chat GPT uh

but instead of for humans for for

animals so this first bit is the prompt

so this is what the bird sang and then

the AI continues it it's sort of like

autocomplete right for animal

communication predictive text exactly

right but but for birds so here we

go okay I didn't to my ear I wasn't

looking I didn't notice the point at

which it became fake and yet does the

bird notice you don't know yet like we

are right at that cusp of trying for the

very first time to have like AI animal

direct like

communication the capability to converse

with animals would be an almost magical

superpower but even if we could what

words from our human world would we even

say I think we should expect something

parts of our experience to be very

similar you know we all have mothers we

all need to eat and we should expect a

whole bunch to not be so if you're using

this full AI right and it's like doing

autocomplete and you have no idea what

it's saying is there concern that you

might I don't know like distress the

animal or or sort of put them in a

situation they don't need to be in yeah

one of the really scary things about

working on this technology is if we're

not careful and we just create a

synthetic whale and put it on the ocean

that starts to sing like we might mess

up a 34 milliony old wisdom

tradition humbag whales have the ability

to adopt other populations songs and can

broadcast them thousands of miles across

the ocean an AI whale could interfere

with that communication perhaps

affecting Behavior or navigation

[Music]

yeah eventually I think we're going to

need a kind of Geneva Convention for

cross species communication like this

technology is coming whether we build it

or somebody else in some sense it's

inevitable there is an assumption here

that the technology that works for

humans could be transported to work for

animals too but just because AI can

switch from ero to Spanish translating

from English to whale seems like a

different kind of problem altogether it

feels like there's something missing

here right you know when chat GPT was

trained with humans using it and

assessing how much sense it made how

good it was at replicating human

language like we we're kind of missing

the key translator who can go from one

language to the other I know that that's

the point I know that they're saying

that AI can be the Rosetta Stone but I'm

just I'm not sure that I'm convinced

that our worldview

and the things that we care enough about

to have language for are going to map

onto the things that are important to

animals

[Music]

enough these are elephant

seals for 3 months a year they lie

around on beaches while the females wait

for their newborn pups to be old enough

to swim so what does a colony of

elephant seals have to talk about in all

of that time oh my gosh the light the

morning so Beau when it comes down over

all of these Hill siid it's absolutely

beautiful biologist Caroline Casey has

spent over a decad studying these

creatures got a little bit of mountain

goat we go jeans and has begun to

discover what they have to say really

it's just about sitting here and waiting

you know I'll just like post up and kind

of watch to see what's happening on the

on the

colony right now it's mating season and

the seals approach to romance is

seemingly well

one-sided mostly adult females and then

each female for the most part has a

little pup with them and so typically

there's one alpha and his job is to meet

with as many females as possible before

they depart back to seat and that's when

things get really dynamic because

there's males waiting in the wing for is

that male over there

yeah rather than heading straight into

an energy draining and sometimes deadly

battle the competing males call out each

with a unique Rhythm and

tomra this is a real simple

call oh it's like sounds like someone

with a drum

yeah and then I love this one this one

is more complex so there's like a little

substructural components that hopefully

you can

hear oh this say on The Bongo

yeah through a series of playback

experiments Caroline discovered they

were essentially just saying their own

names they've got names exactly what

that they give each other or that they

give themselves they give themselves

essentially we don't know how we don't

know if they learn them or if they're

born with them what so they come in and

they're like Jim here

that's the only thing they say but you

need to be able to have experience with

Jim to know how to respond to them but

if Bob had beat you up a couple times

and you hear the word Bob all of a

sudden you have this association with

this negative thing that

happen in the world of male elephant

seals who only ever say their own name

it's not looking great for an AI Rosetta

Stone to communicate with them but that

doesn't mean that AI can't bring other

benefits

I would love to work with somebody who

specializes in AI to see what they would

find but I'm really driven by a specific

scientific question you know I'm taking

maybe a two-minute recording of this

mail I know exactly who he is I know the

context of the call that he's producing

so it's not just a case of like get the

data now we've got AI press the big like

AI button and and there you go talk to

animal I mean you you the main I'm sorry

I'm just so sidetracked by how

gigantically enormous that and now he's

was coming up and he's like you better

come into my her

oh is it possible though that maybe

there are things other than food and

space and mating that these seals are

talking about sure yeah absolutely yeah

yeah I mean I would be surprised just

cuz we've been studying them for so long

but of course maybe they love surfing

yeah of course we're looking at it

through our own human length and of

course there may be some subtle patterns

that we're missing so I think that

that's where AI can really comp

compliment but it's no substitute for

sitting on a JY I don't think so I think

that the the most elegant and profound

discoveries of animal behavior have come

from knowing individual animals and

watching them and tracking them and just

being

present I think the big thing about this

project is that it's all about listening

rather than communica necessarily it's

all about what these creatures are

saying to each

other and they're only intervening to be

sure that they've understood

it and it does make me wonder about this

idea of communication I mean here it's

one

way but is there is there ever going to

be a situation where talking to wild

animals is a good thing the potential

risks from human to animal communication

are far reaching whether it's causing

animals distress or unknowingly

impacting entire

ecosystems the stakes are high if the

goal of two-way communication is to

actually improve our relationship with

the natural

[Music]

world in Kenya a group of researchers

are trying to do just this this is our

headquarters in Nairobi in this

incredible building actually it's very

very old about 70 years old they have

harnessed the power of communication to

address the growing problem of human

elephant conflict in the hope that they

can prevent both sides from

[Music]

harm it all began after hearing

indigenous folklore that elephants are

terrified of

bees so here we are so this is a one of

the inspired Dr Lucy King hid a

loudspeaker near to a herd of rest ing

elephants and played the sound of a

disturbed Hive of African

bees the bee sound is coming from the

side can you see her face she's lifting

her head up her trunks curling around

ears are out and then you start to see

one female starts the retreat with her

head up tail out she's clearly alert and

she follows and then suddenly because

she starts running they all start

running away oh my goodness and you can

see them literally Galloping away from

what they think as bees coming to get

them but not only did they run away but

the elephants listening to bees head

shook as if there were bees in the air

and then they would also dust themselves

as if they were thinking there are bees

I need to knock them out of the air

because before this moment all you knew

was that they didn't like chilling out

under trees that had beehives in it but

this is like yeah the moment when it's

like no they really do not want to be

near the Beast

to better understand what was going on

Lucy used microphones to record low

frequency elephant rumbles in audible to

humans potentially there's like a ripple

of panic that goes through them

potentially there's some communication

going on there as well and what she

found was rather incredible you get back

to the lab there on the screen are just

ripples of rumbles coming through that

have been captured there's a very

specific shape to the the B Rumble and

if you played that shape of sound

through a very large speaker back to

unknowing elephants they would run away

headshake and dust no yeah so you

basically get the elephant word b yeah

play it to an elephant and they react as

though they're bees yes and that was the

absolute Eureka

[Music]

moment decoding this hidden

communication inspired a way to keep

elephants and humans away from

conflict enter the Beehive fence hives

or identical dummy hives are hung along

a wire to create a border around Farmers

crops if an elephant disturbs the wire

the fence releases a swarm of angry bees

sending the elephants on their

way it's a deceptively simple solution

and just the beginning of scientific

research that could provide conservation

at a wider

level our interpretation of this we are

passionately interested in the animal

itself but then the reality is to help

us save them because they're all under

such threat and I guess understanding

that comes through language Perhaps

Perhaps you know perhaps the language

might give us an insight into how they

are reacting to each other we played B

sounds to certain elephants and then we

played the sound of samburu Warriors to

another group of elephants they don't

hedake they don't dust they actually run

so they Rumble but they don't make a

huge load of noise because they want to

be quiet so like a word for scary human

yes and the question is is it scary

human or is it scary samuru so the

threat level is different and the

elephants respond differently to the

threat levels yeah this is the the level

of complexity that we're teasing apart

now with the with the science that we

can

do as AI develops it will provide

researchers with new ways to tune into

the animal kingdom

goals that once seemed Fantastical could

be closer than

ever and while a meaningful conversation

with an elephant might never come to

pass none of it will matter unless we

are willing to properly engage and

appreciate the other species on this

planet honestly I'm a little bit

skeptical about how far it's going to

take us because if we do manage to get

to this future where we can fully

communicate with animals

I'm not sure that humans are going to be

that good at listening

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]