If your cat slowly, your dog whining, or your rabbit doing that strange thing with his feet again, you will recognize the familiarity of guilt that most other pet owners share.
But for those who want to know what is going on in the minds of their loyal companions, help may be at hand soon, thanks to the establishment of the first scientific institution dedicated to empirically investigating animal consciousness.
The Jeremy Coller Centre at Animal Sentience, based at London Society for Economics and Political Science (LSE), begins work on September 30th to study non-human animals, including evolutionarily distant objects such as insects, crabs and squid.
Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary global expertise, the £4 million centre’s work spans neuroscience, philosophy, veterinary science, law, evolutionary biology, comparative psychology, behavioral science, computer science, economics and artificial intelligence.
One of its most eye-catching projects is to explore how AI can help humans “talk” with pets, help them to be incorrect in the dangers of it, and what we need to do to prevent it.
“We show pets human traits and with the advent of AI, the way your pet can talk to you will take over to a whole new level,” said Professor Jonathan Burch, the center’s first director.
“However, AI often generates user-pleasing make-up responses rather than being locked into objective reality. This can be a disaster if applied to pet welfare,” said Birch, whose input to animal welfare acts has been extended to include cephalopod mollusks and decapod crustaceans.
Birch refers to separation anxiety. Dog owners want a sense of security that if left untreated for a long time, their pets will not suffer. Futuristic “translation” apps based on large-scale language models may promise to provide that sense of security, but they will cause harm by telling them what they want to hear, not what animals actually need.
“We urgently need a framework to manage responsible, ethical, use of AI in relation to animals,” Burch said. “At this point, there is a complete lack of regulations in this area. The Centre wants to develop globally recognized ethical guidelines.”
Birch also points out the lack of regulations around animals and unmanned vehicles. “We have a lot of arguments without attacking people, but we don’t even avoid cats or dogs.”
AI and agriculture were another urgent issue for the centre. “Agriculture is already embracing automation in a big way, and it will increase at a pace,” Burch said. “But it’s happening without much scrutiny or debate. This raises a big ethical question about what the limits are: Should farming involve relationships with animals? If so, the current direction is not the way we want to farm.”
The centre will work with non-governmental organizations to develop guidance, research and codes of practice that can be lobbyed around the world.
Jeff Sebo, director of the Environmental Animal Protection Center at New York University, said the issues of animal sense and welfare, the impact of AI on animals, and the public’s attitude towards animals are “among the most important, difficult and neglected issues we face as a society.”
“Humans share the world with millions of species and 100 million individual animals, and we affect animals all over the world, whether we like it or not,” he said.
Professor Christine Andrews, one of the new center’s councillors, said he believes he can answer what he considers as the biggest problem in science. What is human consciousness?
“We still don’t understand why we’re still making humans aware or why someone starts to become aware or stops,” she said. “But we know that the way to get the answer is to study simple systems first. Science has made great strides in genomics and medicine by studying simple organisms.”
Another trustee, Dr. Christophe Dont, said he was fascinated by the human attitude towards animal sensations.
“One of the most pressing behavioral challenges of our time is how to bridge the gap between what people believe about animals and how they actually act,” he said.
“Most people are deeply interested in animals, but there are all these systems, habits, norms, economic benefits that get in the way of translating them into how they treat them.
“I want to use behavioral science to understand why people are reluctant to eat, for example, cultivated meat.
Jeremy Koller, whose foundation made a multi-year commitment to the Center, said his purpose was to change our “species of species” attitudes.
“Only when we have a better understanding of how other animals feel and communicate can we acknowledge our own shortcomings in how we treat them,” he said. “Just like Rosetta Stone unleashed the secrets of hieroglyphics, I am confident that the power of AI will help unlock our understanding of how other animals experience interactions with humans.”
