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Jun 2013 min read

The Next Frontier of Human-Animal Communication

Updated: Sep 25



In this episode of Signal Shift, we explore the future of animal communication, sharing real-world stories as “signals” of potential shifts in how we understand and interact with the animal kingdom. From AI decoding whale conversations to the mainstream acceptance of pet psychics, we delve into innovations that could redefine our relationship with animals. Imagine a world where animals have rights and technology enhances our ability to understand them. What ethical considerations arise as we gain the ability to decode and interpret animal communication? Join us to discover how these shifts might redefine the way we understand and respect the voices of all creatures sharing our planet.





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Episode Transcript:

This transcript was computer-generated and human-edited and might contain errors. 


Lana: Welcome to Signal Shift by Horizon Shift Lab. We’re your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals -- in technology, culture, and society-- uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more - go to horizonshiftlab.com.


So today, we're especially excited to discuss the future of animal communication. So each of us will share a signal that we found -- being a trend, an innovation or an emerging idea -- related to this theme of animal communication and we'll discuss how these possible futures could influence our daily lives. And so we invite you to think alongside us and share your thoughts.

So who would like to open on this theme?


Raakhee: I'll go. Yeah, this is an interesting one. We know AI is going to do a lot in this frontier, so I think there are a lot of signals in that arena. So the signal that really sparked my excitement was actually one related more to what’s being discovered and what could come after. 


My signal is actually a new study, research study, that they did in Chile, they found a hundred new species of ocean life.


And that's because they had a robot that could go much deeper. So we have the technology now for new discoveries. So it's pretty amazing. I mean, it's different types of sponges and coral and sea urchins and types of lobsters and squid, maybe not a big sort of sea animal. This is really deeper, so smaller life, but it sounds like that biodiversity was super rich. I mean a hundred species we don't have cataloged and categorized. It's pretty amazing. 


Yeah, we are going to not only have the tools to decipher language with animals. We are also reaching frontiers of being able to engage with them more. Finding ocean life that we couldn't access before and I think the more data we have, the more different species we have, it's only gonna make our ability to decipher the language even better. Right? So yeah, that was my short and sweet signal but exciting.


Sue: That's encouraging to hear because the fact that you can use AI and tech to just have new discoveries and to explore new ocean life is super exciting. It just makes me also wonder, yeah, with this kind of tool -- who are other explorers that can actually go to other uncharted territories? Or perhaps, already we thought they were charted completely, but they're actually not because we can see new dimensions into them?


Raakhee: I love that's such a profound reminder. I think, especially the ocean, we have barely touched the surface. So there's so much underneath.


Lana: Yeah, I feel it's really encouraging and optimistic, especially as we do have awareness about species going extinct, right, and trying to save species from extinction. And so just kind of a reminder, or just to know, even as we save those, that there are also more species than we're even aware of. So, I think that's pretty cool.


[4:01]


Raakhee: Yeah, and just speaking about extinct species just reminds me of the cuff though. Y’know, they are building this highway bridge. I don't know if you've heard about this project. It's an animal crossing. And so right now here in the Santa Monica Mountains, a lot of the mountain lions and things get knocked down. So I see Sue's like, she’s heard of it.


So this amazing project with building this bridge across the highway so that these animals don't have to actually get onto the roads and highways, and it's gonna be literally like a wildlife bridge over the highway. This is gonna be radical. It's gonna be interesting to see and it's pretty close to us, it's 15 minutes away. So we should do an excursion. You guys should come out and visit. I think it's still gonna probably take two years or so to build. But they started, they started building.


Lana: It is exciting. I think it's reassuring that we can prioritize the earth, we can prioritize animals, not just ourselves. And so I love that. I didn't know about that. So I'm glad that you brought it up. And I think that would be an exciting story to follow.


[5:19]


Sue: That actually kind of segues into the signal I found around animal communication. So I found a research paper from the University of Saskatchewan that really studied what they called human-animal relationships as a mode of well-being and community in indigenous communities. And especially this was up in Saskatchewan. And so they talked about the role of animals as sentient beings equal to humans or even more than humans, and several dimensions of how they benefited people and their communities. And so they talked about animals as healers, animals as guides, animals as family members, like providers. All of these different things. So it just made me think, kind of another piece of their article was talking about the way we think about animals has been, in their minds, it's been colonized, right? And so that has been an essential piece of their identity that has been removed that they're trying to come back to. And so I was thinking there's some connection there, between also this just natural inclination towards understanding there's more to communication with animals than just being pets or guardians or whatever.


And so it made me think, yeah, if you get to a point where they’re providers, healers, like all these different, essentially, professions of animals and relationship to animals -- then what kind of rights should animals have? It's like moving from a world where humans are completely in control, or so they think, of the animal world to one where maybe animals have equal rights as humans or maybe more, who knows. 


[7:00]


And so lo and behold actually, this is in California, Raakhee. I found that the City of Ojai created a law, at least specifically for elephants, that they gave elephants equal rights status. And it kind of mirrors a couple of constitutional amendments in other countries that are giving animals equal rights, which I thought was fascinating. It doesn't take long to think this might be a next step, really a movement talking about this, and I'm sure there's been a movement in the works for a long time. I'm just starting to awaken to it.


Raakhee: Yes I definitely, I know in future circles, this is a big one. They talk about it a lot. So you're absolutely right. Definitely something to explore. It's not something I know too much about, but it's a conversion that makes sense. It makes sense. It feels right.


As it does for how we take care of the land, and our trees, and this whole concept of equal rights, and that extending beyond a little human body sort of boundary but everything that inhabits this planet. It is this planet. So I love that and I had no idea Ojai had a law like that. So yeah, that’s so interesting. And elephants, just elephants.


Sue: Very specifically elephants


[8:34]


Lana: Yeah, there's so many layers to what you're saying. And I think I agree with you Raakhee. There's a convergence here of a couple of different, sort of, trends. I mean, I'm even thinking of something I saw recently related to social isolation, which we've talked about. It said that as people have become more isolated from each other, actually, pet ownership has gone up. And so on one hand we're spending less time with each other in person, but we're spending more time with animals. And maybe increasing our empathy, right, and those abilities, those intuitive and nonverbal skills that I imagine you have when you are a pet owner. And if that translates to other animals outside your home.


I don't own a pet. I know, Sue, you do. I don't know if that resonates with you. Do you feel like you can communicate with your animals in your home?


Sue: They are so above my head in terms of what they're trying to communicate to me. But it was funny, after I read this, I was just staring at them. I need a space where we can connect better, and it's funny because I have two at home, right, and I could send you this video. They're literally talking to each other. This is 10 minutes of them just barking at each other, but they look like they're having a conversation, and if we could just figure out what they're saying, we would definitely be eavesdropping but I would love to know what they're saying. 


Lana: I do actually listen to some animal communication podcasts, if you’re interested They're super interesting, where it's a live session with the medium, and the person, and their pet. It's pretty cool. 


Sue: No way. 


Raakhee: That is cool. It makes sense, we communicate with symbols, words, body language, but energy also, right? That's why we can feel. So I think we’re just opening up to see communication beyond words as a society. I think finally like hey…?


Lana: Yeah for sure.


[10:57]


Sue: There was this crazy story I read from our local magazine for Michigan. They called her the pet psychic of Leelanau County, or something like that. But she has saved the lives of some of the animals. Because there was one, I think it was a horse, that was really sick. And so she went to the owner and figured out that the horse was telling her not to feed her a certain type of food. And they stopped. And they got healthy! It was like -- that is incredible. And there were so many stories like that, where they were like, “Tell her not to do this.” I don't know how you learned this thing, but it is incredible what they're doing.


Lana: I think there comes a cost to it, too, if you do have those types of skills.


Raakhee: I have a friend who does Reiki and it's the same thing. She can only do so much because she’s like, “Literally after I work on somebody, it's like I take on some of that energy, it's really draining.” And she has to find an outlet in a way not to process some of it, and carry it, she’s like it's gonna take time. So it's not just like something she can fall into and do a lot of, just slowly build up. 


[12:15]


Lana: I guess my story is an AI animal communication story. So this comes from a New Yorker article from the fall, and is called “Talk to Me: Can AI Allow Us to Speak to Another Species?” And so it profiles a marine biologist, his name's David Gruber,and he leads a project that's called the Cetacean Translation Initiative, which basically aims to decode whale communication, decoding sperm whale communication through machine learning. 


So the article kind of goes through his whole journey about how he and his group, how they track the whales and then how they kind of jerry rig these recording devices that they either, sort of, attach to the whale or they have to try to get deep down to where the whales are, so that they can record what they're saying, and gathering all of this data. 


And so what we do know is that sperm whales use a series of clicks to communicate with each other and then we also know that these exchanges can resemble a conversation where there's a certain series of clicks and then another whale will respond with clicks.And then they'll say clicks again. 


And we also know that the clicks, which are called codas, vary regionally among different groups. So there's something there. But now with AI, with machine learning, there also might be sounds that we can't even hear, right, and so it's both decoding kind of the codas and trying to understand the patterns and the rhythms and what the structures, even those that might be very subtle to us, the sequences, the frequency, the duration, and then trying to extract meaning from that. So that's kind of the project.


And I think it seems this is very ambitious, and I think I started feeling a little torn. Because maybe the mystery in their conversations, maybe it's private. Maybe we’re like eavesdropping. Figuring out what they're saying. I think there's some beauty to the mystery of it, maybe this can increase our empathy for the animals if we can really understand what they're saying, just to each other. But also -- do they want to communicate with us? Maybe we don't even register on their radar. Maybe we're the ants in their world. But just the possibilities of it, I think seem really incredible what we can do now, that we couldn't do before.


[15:30]


Sue: Yeah, I wonder how that decoding may help us coexist peacefully with other animals because as you were talking about that, Lana, I imagined more of a dystopian world, right, where you use this and it’s to man's advantage completely. Does that even change, kind of, selection of which sperm whales survive. But there is a whole other possibility where you see these patterns and then therefore you create shipping lanes in different areas because now you know what they're talking about. That would be an amazing use of what comes out of this.


Raakhee: I love that, Sue. You’re thinking so practically about it. It's so smart, right, so exciting, being able to decipher that. And it got me thinking about interspecies communication. If we can decipher these models, do we play mediator to different species also, and helping them talk? And I know there's some cases where they do, and I think it's whales and dolphins, who speak different dialects, right? They come together at certain points, certain places to hunt together. You cannot do that without communicating. So, so exciting.


Lana: I think that's a really interesting idea. Also, very funny because I feel like as humans, we haven't even really mastered communicating with each other. And now we're like, let's get involved in the animal kingdom. We're gonna serve as a mediator. That could be a disaster. But interesting to think about different roles and possibilities. 


[17:17]


I guess, if you had the power to communicate with animals: what do you think you would do with it?


Sue: As a very concrete next step for me -- there's a study at Harvard. They have this Institute that’s studying dog behavior and kind of understanding their brains. And so they have a bunch of surveys open that you can participate in, and so I was just looking at them to see if they're any that we qualify for. That hopefully, maybe, we can help participate in research for the future. 


[17:52]


Raakhee: I'm going to tell you guys, I forget about this, but it's one of those stories of my life that hopefully will carry on in something. I'm doing like you see. But I had this weird incident. This is my craziest slash spiritual slash something with animals.


So South Africa, in certain parts of a community, the chances of you getting mugged or hijacked, statistically, it’s relatively high. You avoid it, you just don't do certain things. So anyways I was working in one of these areas, where afterdark, you just don't want to be around. But I was working in this neighborhood. And typically everybody leaves by 6PM, right, because you gotta get to your car in the carpark or whatever, and I just got caught up in work. And typically when I do that, my car is closer, but I forgot that I parked two, three blocks away. And there's a security guard for a certain portion, but after that, there isn't, right. So it’s the last block and then getting to the park where my car is parked and probably going to be one of the few ones. And so when I finished work it was like 8pm, I gotta get home. 


I do the walk, security guard. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I have this last stretch now, it's dark now. I’m just gonna be okay, and you walk to this parking lot and I forgot there's a point of a hill almost that I drove under to park and I got to get through. Like imagine a small little tunnel, just a tunnel for five seconds, but it's dark. You got to get through it to get to this parking lot. And this first area is completely empty, there is a guard there but he doesn't seem like an official guard, he’s just someone watching the parking lot and sometimes those can be the people who can get you in trouble as well. 


Anyways, I'm walking down, there’s no one around except that guy at the back, it’s dark. I'm a little scared. I'm walking, I look to my right, I'm getting closer to this tunnel part. I see eyes, like, cat eyes. Just one cat. This cat just comes up and sits on this mound of sand and dust and okay, I keep walking. When I turn, like a few seconds later, there's 10, 15 of them. They don't approach me, they’re all just standing up like that with their eyes, right, all I can see is their eyes because it's pretty dark. But anyways, I kept walking, and I swear they are all looking at me, like 15, it was like a pack. And I walked down, but they did nothing. In my relief the story I tell myself is they were actually protecting me. They did nothing. They didn't come to me, they just did that and I got in my car and was out there, it was fine, but it was… Yeah, it was one of those. What was that? I don't know what it means. I make it mean this really hey, they're protected me. I don't know.


Lana: I think it's striking right? It wasn't even if it was one cat you could be like, oh you noticed it but to have --  no that's weird. That's not normal.


Raakhee: It was bizarre at least. Yeah.


Lana: Yeah. Wow.


Sue: I was like I could feel the hair on the back of my neck starting to stand up as you were talking about that, my gosh.


Lana: Me too. I love the idea that they were protecting you. It's like the guard walks you to the next guard.


Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you both so much. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Signal Shift.


[21:26]

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