The day is approaching when we can ask our dog what it dreams about at night
Artificial intelligence and other technologies are already helping researchers decode whale language, identify patterns in animal communication, and even conduct "conversations" with dogs. However, the question is no longer just what they are trying to tell us, but whether we will know how to listen to them.
The author is the founder of Humane Future Ecologies™ - a field of research, thought, and action that examines the space where humans, technology, and living environments shape one another.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is opening a new way to explore animal communication, and perhaps our relationship with them as well. Anyone who lives with a pet is familiar with this curiosity - the desire to know if it is in pain, if it is afraid, missing someone, or remembering what it has been through. Alongside algorithms that try to crack the language of nature, domestic tools like communication buttons are also trying to bridge the gap. Today, these possibilities are less distant than they seem.
One of the most intriguing areas is the attempt to use technological tools to understand how animals communicate, to explore the relationships between them, and perhaps one day, how they see us as well.
The secrets of the sperm whales
In recent years, researchers have been using various tools to identify patterns in animal communication and reveal structures that have always been there. One of the most prominent projects in the field is CETI, which investigates the vocal communication of sperm whales. By combining sound recordings, behavioral documentation, and machine learning, researchers are trying to understand the structure, patterns, and contexts of communication between whales.
In a study recently published about sperm whales in Dominica, it was proven that it is possible to predict the characteristics of the next coda (a sequence of sounds) that one individual emits based on the sequence of previous codas of another individual. The findings show that vocal exchanges develop as continuous vocal sequences.
While science is beginning to reveal the complexity of whale communication, indigenous communities in the Polynesian region have for generations described them as ancestors, guides, and partners in the world. This year, their leaders published a declaration recognizing whales as having legal personhood. Alongside the declaration, a partnership was formed between the CETI project, the Hinemoana Halo organization, and New York University's MOTH program, which seeks to connect research, law, and local traditions. The initiative's website states that for those communities, whales were never perceived merely as animals, but as part of an ongoing cultural relationship system.
"Why is Bunny a dog?"
Sensitive sensors and machine learning algorithms are used to identify communication patterns in mice, birds, and other species as well. As our knowledge of these communication systems expands, the ethical question sharpens - if we learn to speak with animals, will we also know how to listen?
One can experience something of this future already now through Bunny, a Sheepadoodle who became a TikTok star with millions of followers. Bunny learned to communicate through buttons - a technology based on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), originally developed for humans who cannot speak. She reminded her owners to feed her, to go out, and asked to meet friends. At one point, she stood in front of a mirror and pressed again and again: "Dog. What is dog?", "Why is Bunny a dog?".
Over the years, new words were added to the buttons she used, and sequences were created that looked like sentences dealing with her own existence. Later, her owner, Alexis Devine, said that Bunny was treated with Prozac following anxiety and emotional difficulties.
The question of whether Bunny really "spoke" will likely remain open, but one thing can be seen: the buttons changed the conditions within which the relationship between her and Devine developed. Devine titled her book "I Am Bunny: How a 'Talking' Dog Taught Me Everything I Need to Know About Being Human". Perhaps this title tells the whole story.
The ethical question on the other side
Before Bunny arrived, there were known attempts to teach animals to use human language: Washoe, the chimpanzee who learned signs based on American Sign Language, and Koko, the gorilla who learned more than a thousand signs. These cases always raised the same question: did the animals express an inner world of their own, or did we bestow our cultural meaning upon their words?
The communication tool changed the relationship between Bunny and Devine. What it wrought in Bunny herself we will likely never know, just as we can never fully know the depth of the emotional world of the person in front of us. But one thing is already clear: the world we live in is much more layered than we have become accustomed to thinking, ecologically and consciously.
The question that will face humanity in the coming years is whether we will learn to recognize the existence of those who share the world with us, before we rush to grant status to the tools we create.
