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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Thanks for sharing! Just posted a thread on the paper for anyone interested: bsky.app/profile/marr...

Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

What will the rats in our cities and the dolphins in our seas demand from us if we can engage in two way communication? Are we ready for these responsibilities? We think that the organizations supporting the research are obligated to prepare the world to have these conversations. 13/13 rdcu.be/fbZwv

rdcu.be

Can we talk to the animals? The ethics of using machine learning to decode animal communication

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Further, if we succeed at engaging in two-way communication with animals, we create new moral relationships–we enter practices of responsibility and can make demands on one another. 12/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Decoding animal signals involves radical translation, which requires applying the principle of charity to animals. To apply the principle of charity to someone, you must assume that they are rational, an assumption that has moral implications in many ethical frameworks. bit.ly/4sUdSwY 11/

youtube.com

«GAVAGAI» – the philosophical thought experiment | #filosofix

YouTube video by SRF Kultur Sternstunden

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

But the biggest concerns are around successful translation of animal communication. If we can talk to the animals, what are the ethical implications? How would it change our relationships with other species? 10/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Generally, @kristinandrews.bsky.social and I think following best practices from both fields will address these concerns. But, there are open questions about creating animal #deepfakes, how ‘playbacks’ of synthetic signals will be received, and how models are trained. 9/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Using machine learning to try to ‘decode’ animal communication is an instance of the second, aided by advances in AI. These projects inherit the ethical issues from both comparative cognition and artificial intelligence: playback experiment ethics, opacity in AI, and bias in both fields. 8/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

The second form involves attempts to understand the natural communication systems found in wild animals, as in research on ape gestures such as greatapedictionary.ac.uk. 7/

greatapedictionary.ac.uk

The Great Ape Dictionary

check out team Gesture on BBC: Primates

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

The first is trying to teach animals human languages (or artificial symbolic systems, like what #Kanzi learned) 6/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

We have made many attempts to understand and communicate with animals. In comparative psychology, these take two main forms: 5/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Dr. Dolittle inspired us to think about talking to other species, and the recent Pixar film #Hoppers explores what it would be like to talk to animals. www.pixar.com/hoppers As these fictional stories often tell us, successfully talking to animals may not be all sunshine and rainbows. 4/

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

There has been lots of media attention on using AI to talk about animals, including articles by @rossandersen.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/science/arch... and prizes offered for decoding animals signals coller-dolittle-24.sites.tau.ac.il 3/

theatlantic.com

How First Contact With Whale Civilization Could Unfold

If we can learn to speak their language, what should we say?

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Marriah Alcantara @marriah.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

New open access publication in Topoi! @kristinandrews.bsky.social and I explore the ethics of AI animal translation projects. 🖥️🐬Before we build it, we need to take stock of the ethical implications. rdcu.be/fbZwv 🧵👇1/13

rdcu.be

Can we talk to the animals? The ethics of using machine learning to decode animal communication

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