How Machine Learning AI Can Help Humans Communicate Directly With Animals

Vox producer Laura Bult spoke with various animal biologists and researchers to find out how machine learning AI is helping humans communicate with animals. The experts she spoke to include Joyce Poole who studies elephants, Yossi Yovel who works with bats, and Aza Raskin of the Earth Species Project, each of whom is using technology to respectfully communicate with the other sentient beings who occupy the planet.

AI researchers and biologists are teaming up to detect patterns in animal communication that are difficult, if not impossible, to observe with the human eye alone. The studies that have come out so far are steps towards what some AI companies see as a larger goal: building large language models to decode animal communication that is beyond the reach of human comprehension.