AI researchers are set to explore how humans could “speak” with their pets, as the first scientific institution focused on investigating animals’ consciousness is established.
The £4million Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience, which is based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), is set to launch its work researching non-human animals on 30 September, using experts from across a range of disciplines.
Among its projects is one set to explore how AI might be able to help humans “speak” with their pets – as well as what could go wrong, and how to avoid the potential dangers.
Professor Jonathan Birch, the inaugural director of the centre, told the Guardian: “We like our pets to display human characteristics and with the advent of AI, the ways in which your pet will be able to speak to you is going to be taken to a whole new level.
“But AI often generates made-up responses that please the user rather than being anchored in objective reality. This could be a disaster if applied to pets’ welfare.
“We urgently need frameworks governing responsible, ethical AI use in relation to animals. At the moment, there’s a total lack of regulation in this sphere. The centre wants to develop ethical guidelines that will be recognised globally.”
The centre is set to work alongside non-governmental organisations with a view to developing guidance and research that could then be lobbied for globally.
Jeff Sebo, the director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, at New York University, told the newspaper that issues of animal sentience and welfare, the impact of AI on animals, as well as public attitudes towards animals are “among the most important, difficult and neglected issues that we face as a society”.
“Humans share the world with millions of species and quintillions of individual animals, and we affect animals all over the world whether we like it or not,” he added.
Professor Kristin Andrews, who is one of the new centre’s trustees, said she believed the new project could even answer the question of human consciousness and what it is, which she sees as the biggest one in science.
She said: “We still don’t understand what makes humans conscious, or why anyone starts or stops being conscious. But we do know that the way to get answers is to study simple systems first: science has made great strides in genomics and in medicine by studying simple organisms.”
