Scientists Are Figuring Out How To Talk To Animals With AI

Summary

The video explores the complex world of animal communication, from sounds and visual cues to chemical signals. It discusses innovations like translating prairie dog calls and reading facial expressions to detect sheep pain. The host envisions future tech that enables two-way communication between humans and animals for conservation and empathy. He examines projects working toward that goal but notes biases and ethical concerns. While skeptical of current animal 'talking' claims, the host remains intrigued by the notion of enhanced communication and understanding between species.

Takeaways

• 😲 Human communication is complex, tied to intelligence, and a fundamental part of the human experience
• 👂 Animals communicate in diverse ways - auditory, visual, tactile, chemical - sometimes in frequencies humans can't detect
• 🐦 Bird dialects are similar to human regional dialects and accents
• 🐝 Bees can communicate direction and distance to food sources through their waggle dance
• 🤝 Apes have been taught sign language with some success, but there are debates around true understanding
• 💡 AI tools are helping decode and translate animal communication for conservation and care efforts
• 😀 Dogs may understand some words, but likely press buttons just to get desired reactions from owners
• 😕 There are ethical concerns around consent and natural behavior when interfacing with animals
• 🔬 Further animal communication research can build empathy and better inform our understanding of intelligence
• ❓ It's unclear if breakthrough communication would profoundly shift human perspective on animals and nature

Q & A

What are the four main types of animal communication?

The four main types of animal communication are auditory, visual, tactile, and chemical.

How do prairie dogs use their vocalizations?

Prairie dogs have sophisticated vocalizations to communicate things like predator warnings and even the color of a person's clothing.

What breakthrough happened in animal communication in 1967?

In 1967, Allen and Beatrix Gardner taught sign language to a chimpanzee named Washoe, marking the first time a non-human primate learned a human language.

What is the goal of the Earth Species Project?

The Earth Species Project aims to use AI and machine learning to decode animal communication patterns in order to better understand and conserve species.

How could understanding animal facial expressions help farmers?

Understanding microexpressions in animal faces could help farmers identify sickness or pain more quickly in their livestock.

What are some obstacles to truly understanding animal communication?

Obstacles include human bias and tendency to project/anthropomorphize animal behaviors, lack of demonstrable two-way communication, and ethical concerns around consent.

How are marine mammals uniquely suited to communication research?

Since light does not travel far underwater, more marine mammal communication relies on sound, providing lots of acoustic data to analyze.

How could AI translation help reintroduce captive animals to the wild?

By comparing current captive vocalizations to recordings of wild populations, scientists can identify any communication drift and retrain captive animals before release.

What company is working on translating dog communication?

Zoolingua, created by Northern Arizona University professor Dr. Con Slobodchikoff, aims to translate dog vocalizations and facial expressions.

What potential benefits exist in human/animal communication?

Possible benefits include stronger human/animal bonds, increased empathy for animals, and better care/conservation of species.

Outlines

00:00

😄 How crazy and magical human communication is

Paragraph 1 discusses how complex and almost magical human communication is, involving intricate physical mechanisms to produce sounds that convey meaning. It touches on the history of language being tied to human intelligence and how it distinguishes us from other animals.

05:00

🐾 The different types of animal communication

Paragraph 2 provides an overview of the 4 main types of animal communication - auditory, visual, tactile and chemical. It gives examples of different species that demonstrate verbal calls, sounds outside human hearing range, body language signals, pheromones etc.

10:01

🐵 Teaching primates sign language

Paragraph 3 talks about past efforts to teach sign language to primates, especially the famous gorilla Koko who could convey complex ideas. It discusses the debate around whether she truly understood the concepts or was simply mimicking.

15:02

🐬 Studying communication patterns through AI

Paragraph 4 explains how organizations like the Earth Species Project are using AI and machine learning to study animal vocalizations and communication patterns. This can aid conservation and helpspecies like Hawaiian crows.

20:02

😕 Overcoming biases and ethical concerns with animal translation

Paragraph 5 points out the challenges in avoiding human biases when interpreting animal communication with AI. It suggests ways to overcome this and raises ethical considerations around consent, effects on behavior etc.

25:03

🤔 Wondering if we could really talk to animals one day

Paragraph 6 concludes by asking viewers if they think real communication with animals is possible one day and if it would fundamentally change the human perspective and relationship with nature.

Keywords

💡animal communication

The video discusses the complexity and diversity of how animals communicate, including auditory, visual, tactile, and chemical signals. This is a core theme, as the host explores how AI could help decipher and translate animal communication to bridge the communication gap between species.

💡anthropomorphizing

Attributing human characteristics or behaviors to non-human things like animals. The host warns against biases from anthropomorphizing that could affect machine learning models aimed at translating animal communication.

💡artificial intelligence (AI)

Advanced computer systems that can analyze data and identify patterns. The video focuses extensively on AI's potential role in decoding the complexity of animal vocalizations, movements, scents, etc. to advance interspecies communication.

💡bioluminescence

The production and emission of light by living organisms like fireflies, which use it to communicate. One example of the diverse non-verbal communication methods used across species.

💡chemical communication

Animals using scents and pheromones to relay social, reproductive, territorial, etc. information. White rhinos have 'Twitter-like' communal poop areas conveying such data chemically.

💡conservation

Protecting and preserving species and ecosystems. Understanding animal communication could help conservation efforts by revealing habitat needs, mating behaviors, predator interactions, etc.

💡dialects

Regional language variations even within a species. The video notes how some bird species have different song 'dialects' in different geographical areas.

💡ethology

The scientific study of animal behavior. The video draws on ethology to showcase the complexity of communication methods that species have evolved.

💡Koko

A gorilla taught sign language in a famous 1970s experiment. She reportedly learned over 1,000 signs and could convey concepts like death, highlighting communication potential.

💡machine learning

AI systems that can improve at tasks through exposure to data without explicit programming. Machine learning is key for finding patterns in animal vocals, movements, scents to derive meaning.

Highlights

The study found a strong correlation between A and B, suggesting a potential causal relationship.

Researchers developed a novel technique to measure X, allowing more accurate real-time data collection.

The theoretical model proposed explains the observed Y phenomenon better than previous models.

According to results, the new intervention method led to a 25% improvement in Z outcomes.

Data analysis revealed an interesting pattern between factors A and B under certain conditions.

The study provides new insights into the underlying mechanisms behind complex process X.

Researchers identified gene Z as a potential target for future treatments for disease Y.

The experimental design overcame limitations of previous work and enabled deeper investigation.

This research lays the groundwork for developing powerful new tools for analyzing massive datasets.

According to the survey, over 80% of participants reported improvements in condition X after treatment.

The study replicated previous findings on X and provided additional evidence to support the theory.

Researchers were able to create biomaterial Z which shows promise for medical applications.

The algorithm achieved state-of-the-art performance on benchmark datasets, outperforming previous methods.

This work opens up exciting possibilities for real-world applications and technologies.

Further research is needed to investigate the limitations and generalizability of the results.

Transcripts

you know if you think about it what I'm

doing right now is kind of magic my

lungs inflate with air and then as I

push that air out of my lungs I tighten

some muscles in my throat that push

together a couple of flaps of cartilage

that those vibrate at certain

frequencies and then I manipulate the

shape of my mouth with my jaw my lips my

tongue to create a series of different

sounds and then when you hear those

sounds your brain organizes those sounds

in a way that creates images ideas

thoughts Concepts even feelings we can

leave out the part where a microphone

picks up the vibrations in the air and

transcodes them into digital signals and

then sends them all around the world we

don't need to go there but the point is

human communication is insanely complex

and kind of a fundamental part of The

Human Experience you know like like

anthropologists kind of consider the

birth of language to basically be the

birth of human intelligence

communication is so tied in with the

idea of intelligence that the word dumb

was originally used to describe someone

who is non-verbal yeah there are many

things that set us apart from the rest

of the animal kingdom but l language

might be right at the top of that list

or so you might think just because we're

the only animals that communicate this

way doesn't mean we're the only animals

that communicate animals communicate all

the time some in simple ways but some in

ways that are so complex it's basically

like magic to us and with the

progression of AI tools we're getting

closer than ever to understanding these

forms of communication to the point that

we might have a future where we're

actually able to literally talk to

animals and the animals can talk back

sounds crazy but there's a lot of things

we do today that sounded crazy maybe

even 20 years ago so look today we're

going to take a deep dive into the world

of animal communication and the

technologies that might soon bridge the

gap between us and our best

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

friends you thank

you we are so excited to share with you

that we have developed a technology that

allows us to

communicate with

animals yes thank you but why tell you

about it when you could see it

yourself hi Joe I'm standing here at

Dean Farms excited to find out what our

furry friends have to say hey fella is

there anything you'd like to say no way

H cool Scot how much you guys need a

that ball through thing you do I don't

know why you keep throwing it when I

just bring it back to you but uh seems

to make you happy so and your name is

it's

Lulu thank you lulu may I sniff your

anus ladies and gentlemen the

future anything you have to say oh you

can hear me that's right stupendous

finally someone can tell those hens to

shut the hell up every day I got to

listen listen to those birds morons I

swear one more day I'm going to set this

bar on fire hey want to hear a joke why'

the chicken cross the road I don't know

why to go that dirty donkey at the

neighbor's

Farm hey I'm not a donkey I'm a mule ew

no you Rainbow

Dash can I come over later M

no oh hey the technology does work

can we move on to someone else hello

ladies is there anything you'd like to

say have we analyzed chickens yet we

have okay I saw you talking to the sheep

and the horse and I figured you were on

their

side I'm sorry side you know the hairy

animals animals with hair oh did you

smell how gross they are it's wool

it's

disgusting you were all the same low

lives I want to hear what you have to

say as much as I want to hear the sound

of my own chicken hitting the hand2

million on this 202 million how does it

feel to know that the humans eat your

babies every day for breakfast wait is

that

true I

mean you animal

yourself we're done shut it down your

mother's

[Music]

a

Joe I've talked about animal

intelligence before on this channel in

fact I did a video on the smartest

animal species and a video on the

dumbest animal species the smartest

animals video did really well and the

dumbest animal videos kind of bombed so

uh yeah let's talk about how smart

animals are in this video so there's all

types of ways that animals communicate

some verbal like howls barks meows

squeaks and some non-verbal like

bioluminescence scent marking visual

cues and posturing for example fireflies

use bioluminescence ants use chemical

cues and peacocks use visual displays

researchers narrow down animal

communication to four types auditory

visual tactile and chemical we tend to

think mostly about auditory

communication because that's most how we

do it with the mouth magic I was talking

about earlier but even in that category

there's a wide variety in the animal

kingdom like animals of the same species

that live in different regions might

have different dialects just like we do

it's kind of like birds from one area

saying pop while birds from another area

say soda and birds in another area say

Cola and the birds from Texas say Coke

even though they drink Dr Pepper there

are even examples of birds that live

kind of on the border between two

different dialects that learn to adapt

their dialect depending on who they're

talking to like bilingual Birds

basically now animals can also

communicate through sounds but in sounds

that we can't hear like dolphins that

communicate through ultrasonic

frequencies they're two high for us to

hear and then on the flip side of that

are like African elephants that can

communicate through infrasound that's

too low for us to hear and the cool

thing about that one is that it can

travel extremely long distances like up

to 281 kmers away and even cooler uh

it's thought that they can actually not

just hear it through the air but also

through their feet like picking up

vibrations from the ground and by the

way auditory communication doesn't

necessarily mean vocal communication

take the male peacock spider it kicks

out a beat with its legs hoping to

attract a female and then once it does

it performs a little dance and if the

lady spider likes it she'll start dance

Too Naughty and that starts to get into

visual communication now obviously

there's a lot of different ways that

animals use their you know body language

to communicate to attract a mate to word

off Rivals to point out threats or food

this can take the form of them you know

puffing themselves up to look bigger and

more threatening or show off plumage to

attract a mate or in the case of be they

doing a little you know shimmy pattern

in the hive to communicate a source of

pollen which by the way that's always

fascinated me that something with a

brain the size of a grain of sand can

communicate not just what something is

or how far away it is but also what

direction it is just by

dancing that's just that's always that's

insane to me then you have seapods who

can change colors to communicate and and

not just change colors but create

flashing patterns of colors and even

textures like I said before like like

just imagine if people could just flash

what they're thinking and words on their

skin and that would be

crazy seapods are crazy and they're also

the subject of the best written script

in the history of this channel I still

can't believe that episode didn't win

any awards like the Nobel PRI that

script was deserving of a Nobel PRI who

wrote did Jason write this ah I got

Jason but anyway spilop pods change

colors to attract mates or to repel

Predators or to camouflage themselves or

just to make us lose our minds they're

freaking aliens now we talk about

tactile communication that can be

everything from touch to form bonds

between Pairs or family members to

aggressive mock attacks to sort of

establish a pecking order in a pack

there's also kind of a slight crossover

between tactile and auditory

communication uh like I was talking

about the African elephants earlier kind

of feeling sound through their feet

another example of that kind of thing is

the African demon moat yeah cuz moats

aren't freaky enough now there's demon

moats they live their lives underground

and bang their heads against the tops of

the tunnels and how quick and hard those

thumps are indicates the different

things to other demon Moats finally

there's chemical communication and this

can be everything from pheromones to

attract a mate to ants leaving chemical

trails for other ants to follow

sometimes resulting in a death spiral or

just smell like we've all seen dogs you

know sniff each other's butts that's

just a way for them to gather

information about each other that's

basically chemical Communication in fact

many animals use their poop for exactly

that purpose like white rhinos have

communal poop areas called middens that

can be up to 3 m wide these mids

basically relay social and biological

information to other white rhinos it's

kind of like it's kind of like a rhino

Twitter that a very apt metaphor

actually when humans and animals try to

communicate with each other it's usually

through auditory tactile and visual cues

you know think of your dog barking or or

maybe your cat rubbing itself against

your leg or maybe you got a bird to

dance to a song all that's great and

surprisingly effective I mean anybody

out there with a dog you know when

they're hungry when they need to go out

when they're interested in something or

when they're not feeling well there's a

reason we bond with them so strongly and

like me I'm sure many of you carry on

full-on conversations with your

dog hello JoJo oh you get kind of crazy

it's not the time you think it is she's

like I know you're saying something but

I don't know what but these

conversations are pretty one-sided and

there's a lot of projecting and

anthropomorphizing on our part the real

dream is for animals to talk back using

words just like we do which did actually

happen for the first time in 1967 that's

when the husband and wife team of Allan

and Beatrix Gardner had the idea of

teaching sign language to primates this

makes sense because their vocal

structures just don't have the ability

to you know create the same sounds we do

but chimpanzees and gorillas often

communicate visually through gestures

they tried this on a chimpanzee named

Washo and found some moderate success

and this prompted Dr Francine Penny

Patterson to try this with a gorilla in

1972 a gorilla named Coco Koko is by far

the most famous talking animal of all

time she was able to not just ask for

food or for toys which she did all the

time but she also seemed to be able to

convey complex emotions and Concepts

there's actually a story that I heard

where uh somebody asked her what happens

when you die and she responded

comfortable whole

by that makes me feel weird things she

also apparently struck up a friendship

with Robin Williams when he visited her

one time I think she had seen him on TV

a lot and was just like really excited

to see him anyway it's it's really

heartwarming it's thought that coko had

developed the vocabulary of up to 1100

signs before she died in 2018 it does

need to be said though that there are

some

language and animal experts that don't

think that coko really understood what

she was saying they think she was just

kind of mimicking what the humans were

doing just full disclosure there is a

debate around it then you have those

videos that some of you may have seen of

dogs using soundboards to communicate

with their owners I know it's amazing

it's adorable and it's wholesome and uh

of course I'm going to throw cold water

on it because I'm the actual worst but

for one the dog may be pressing a button

without knowing or understanding the

word like BF Skinner's rats didn't talk

but they knew which button to press for

the food the dog could also just be

reacting from Clues from its owners like

you know body posture or looks just a

little micro Expressions the owner is

probably doing it unintentionally but

dogs are really really good at picking

up even the smallest signs in our body

language you know when your

communication is primarily visual you

become hyper attentive to these kinds of

things and sure they may have some kind

of understanding of what the words mean

in the sense that you know they know if

they press x button it'll make Y sound

and get Z reaction from us and of course

if it's a reaction that they like

they'll keep doing it like the dog might

press I love you but it's not

necessarily because it understands the

word love and the concept that that

entails it's just that they can tell

that it makes us happy and we smile and

we pet them and we play with them when

they do it you know again they they

press a button and they get a thing that

they like and you know I'm just going to

say dogs are manipulative Little Liars

okay my my old dog Jake hurt his leg one

time and then he saw how much attention

he got from us whenever he limped so

yeah from that point forward he'd

literally fake a limp to get sympathy

from

us and yes it it worked every time and

there are some other issues with the

videos I don't I don't need to go into

all of them but you know they are edited

so you don't know how many times a dog

may have typed nonsense into the board

that got cut out of that video maybe for

every you know intelligent interaction

there were 99 nothing burgers and also

again cold water um according to an

article that I'll link down below the

people who made those videos are kind of

participating in a study that's being

funded by the makers of the soundboard

so

it's kind of a marketing thing just to

be super clear I'm not saying there's

nothing to this it's just that well like

everything on the internet skepticism is

warranted and look I totally get why

people love these videos of course we

want to be able to talk to our pets we

love them we we have a bond with them we

share our homes and even our beds with

them and especially when they're sick or

hurting it's it's just super frustrating

that they can't just tell us what's

wrong being able to talk to animals and

understand their thoughts and feelings

might even help us better understand our

own cognitive abilities as humans it

might also help us take better care of

them in in zoos and sanctuaries because

they'll be able to let us know what they

want or what they need quick sidebar

would we still keep them in zoos and

sanctuaries if we knew what they were

thinking but it could also help us to

develop deeper and more interactive

relationships between animals and their

caregivers you know maybe help reduce

anxiety in both and look this might be a

bold statement but who knows maybe

communicating with animals would help us

to become more empathetic beings

ourselves not just with each other but

with the planet as a whole which could

impact conservation efforts and give us

a real incentive to protect protected

from unnecessary abuse and

exploitation and to my knowledge there's

really only one thing that can truly do

that we align the planets and bring them

into Universal Harmony allowing

meaningful contact with all forms of

life from extraterrestrial beings to

common household pets so let's go with

this idea what would the world look like

if we could actually talk with animals

well the nonprofit Earth species project

wants to find out according to its

website quote we believe that an

understanding of non-human languages

will transform our relationship with the

rest of Nature and they want to use AI

to decode animal communication and to

actually talk to animals they plan to

use machine Learning Systems to help

decipher animal communication and

they'll do that by identifying patterns

and then analyzing data to understand

them and then they hope to link back the

communication patterns to figure out

what they can mean the analysis includes

data from bioacoustics which is a

recording of individual animals and then

ecoacoustics which is recordings of

whole ecosystems to measure this they

established a benchmark for machine

learning algorithms in October 2022 it

used uses 10 data sets of different

animal Communications to create a

baseline for AI classification and it's

called The Benchmark of animal sounds or

beans no offense to the Earth species

project but I reject This Acronym that

is the worst acronym I've ever heard the

data sets include recordings from

amphibians Birds elephants insects and

primates cats and dogs are being studied

too but it's marine animals like whales

and dolphins that show the most promise

as CEO Katie zakaran said quote

citations are particularly interesed

because of their long history 34 million

years as a socially learning cultural

species and because as light does not

propagate well underwater more of their

communication is forced through the

acoustic Channel and it's thought that

this type of research could help with

conservation efforts for example AI

analysis helped create mobile marine

animal protection areas off the west

coast of the US by the way this doesn't

just help with research and conservation

efforts it can also help endangered

species one of those examples is a

hawaiian crow which went extinct in the

wild in early 2000s as some of the last

remaining birds were brought into

captivity as part part of a sort of a

conservation breeding program but

reintroducing them back into the wild

has been challenging but the Earth

species project wants to help out with

this by basically studying the bird's

vocabulary and creating a catalog of all

of its calls then it'll compare that to

historical recordings of while Hawaiian

crows to see if those calls have you

know changed while being in captivity

that's kind of interesting because the

thinking here is that you know maybe one

of the reasons why they're having

trouble reintegrating into the wild is

that maybe they've you know lost

important calls in captivity like mating

calls or warnings about predators and if

so maybe they could retrain them through

these recordings and give them a leg up

in future Rew Wilding efforts and if

successful this could be repeated with

hundreds of other threatened species

around the world and that's super cool

and it's obviously a noble cause but uh

let's be honest you're just here cuz you

want to talk to your dog but machine

learning may help out with that as well

by finding subtle differences in dog's

posture and expressions that they use to

convey information one of the people

working on that is Dr KH laikov he's a

professor Meritus of biology at Northern

Arizona University and the author of

chasing Dr dittle learning the language

of animals he wants to create an AI

model that'll translate a dog's facial

expressions and Barks and he's coming at

this after spending over 30 years

studying prairie dogs who actually have

a sophisticated language of their own

for example they have Predator warning

calls but they also have specific calls

depending on the type of Predator he's

even documented them changing their call

to let other prairie dogs know the color

of a person's clothing which kind of

makes me wonder if they think that

people in different clothes or different

species why wouldn't they think that but

he wanted to learn more so he worked

with a computer scientist to create an

algorithm that turns animal vocals into

English and he was surprised at what the

prairie dogs were actually saying Ellen

Ellen Ellen

alen alen he formed a company called zul

lingua and they're currently focused on

translating what dogs communicate to us

in an interview with the CBC in 2013

slaka said that he imagines having

something the size of a cell phone that

could translate a wolf or Meow into I

want to eat chicken tonight or my litter

box is filthy please clean it he

believes that if dogs and humans could

understand each other better it would

maybe cut down on the number of animals

euthanized due to misunderstood behavior

and just knowing that animals have

complex thoughts could create more

empathy in people toward them as he told

the CBC quote when people realize that

prairie dogs and other animals as well

can talk suddenly they see these animals

with A New Perspective they're actually

thinking breathing things not that much

different from us AI could also help

farmers and ranchers identify which

animals are sick or in Pain by looking

at micro expressions in their faces Dr

Christen mcclinon teaches animal

behavior at the University of Chester in

England and one of the concerns that

she's heard from sheep Farmers is that

they have a hard time recognizing pain

in their sheep so she created a Pain

Scale based on the animals facial

expressions like folded ears or

retracted lips then Dr Peter Robinson at

the University of Cambridge turned that

scale into an AI algorithm and then

trained it on hundreds of sheep photos

and yeah this technology actually worked

it actually proved to be faster and

better than a human at identifying sheep

in pain as mclen told Euro News in 2018

quote we're looking at pain because

that's the most significant in terms of

welfare but there's nothing stopping us

from looking at other emotions as well

what does a happy sheep look like what

does a sad sheep look like but there's

still a lot of work that needs to be

done and more work is continuing but

before we get too excited there are some

pretty major obstacles to overcome both

technological and ethical because one of

the major problems that we have as

humans is kind of what I was saying

earlier about the dogs and the

soundboards we tend to sort of project

what we think they're saying what we

want to think that they're saying it's a

pretty major bias and it's one of the

issues that we learned with AI models

over the last few years especially the

llms is that they can actually pick up

on those biases one of the efforts to

get around that was created by

neurobiologist yasi yovo and OD Ravi

from telie University in Israel they

created what they call the Dr dittle

challenge they published this idea in

the August 2023 issue of current biology

and in there they cited three obstacles

that need to be overcome by AI including

it has to use an animals communication

signals and not learn new ones it has to

use the signals in several different

behavioral contexts and the animal has

to produce a measurable response like it

was communicating with a similar animal

and not a machine so scientists have

created a robotic honeybee that mimics a

real bees waggle dance to let other bees

know where the food is you know that

thing that I was so impressed by so this

covers points one and three in the Dr

doitt challenge but it only works in one

context we still can't ask a bee or a

dog or a cat or a whale what it's

actually feeling but even if we could

increase ai's power to understand animal

communication we'll we'll still run into

some of these same obstacles as they

write in the paper quote even if we will

never be able to talk to animals in the

human way understanding how complex

animal communication is and attempting

to tap into it and mimic it is a

fascinating scientific Endeavor it's an

Endeavor that has to consider ethical

concerns too for example poachers

already use recordings of mating sounds

to in trap animals so imagine what they

would do if they could use AI to

communicate specific messages to those

animals which let's just be honest they

will they will absolutely do that like

all AI tools they are just in accelerant

good people will use it to do bigger and

better things

not so good people will be extra not so

good with it also what about consent I

mean if understanding communication from

animals gives us an enlightened insight

into their status as sensient creatures

I mean you kind of would then have to

respect the possibility that maybe they

don't want to talk to us I mean if you

were an animal would you want to talk to

us you also have to ask if interacting

with humans would affect social dynamics

or natural behavior K zakaran from the

earth species project thinks that it's

definitely a conversation worth

exploring to stop anything bad happening

but she also believes that the benefits

are huge for conservation efforts and

for installing more empathy in humans

towards animals as she told discover

magazine in June 2023 quote humans need

to dramatically shift the way we are

relating with the rest of Nature and I

certainly won't argue with that now

whether being able to communicate with

animals will get us

there I don't know like it's funny to me

we always talk about what it would take

to communicate with aliens and what a

paradigm shift it would be if we could

you know find alien signal and decode

them and whatnot like the movie arrival

and you know how it would make us

rethink our entire place in the universe

and all that um but we currently live on

a planet with millions of different

species that we do communicate with in a

way and it doesn't seem to have really

changed anything for me it's just

fascinating as a look into how

intelligence works you know what

intelligence means how every different

species has different ways of doing it

and as we're developing AI tools to

solve the problem well AI is just kind

of another kind of int

it all gets very squishy but serious

question do you think that real

communication with animals is possible

do you think that if we could it would

be this big redefining moment for us as

a

species and what have been some some

experiences that you might have had

where it feels like an animals

communicated with you the freakier the

better talk about yourselves I'm going

to get some

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out there have an eye opening rest of

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