Veterinary surgeon Jess French recently told the BBC that soon it might be possible to train AI to understand animal communication better than we humans can, by making thousands of data points and hours of footage of animal interactions available to AI systems.

The author of Beastlands (2024) and other animal-themed children’s books was speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival:

In the future, French thinks this could revolutionise taking your dog to the vet. While the advancement is unlikely to translate what your pup’s thinking into human words, it could bypass the need for a human mediator and pick up on signals that we’re just not able to see. Think Dr Dolittle, but with less chit-chat.

Noa Leach, “Why talking to animals, could soon become a reality,” Science Focus/BBC, June 28, 2024

One way AI trained on such data might help is identifying problems that neither the animal nor tests can tell us directly. For example, how bad is an older dog’s arthritis? He can’t tell us “on a scale of 1 to 7″ how much it hurts.

Also, some animals don’t even want anyone to know of their problems. That’s true of rabbits, says Dr. French:

“Rabbits are really good at hiding the way they’re feeling because they don’t want predators to know they’re injured. So being able to understand in different ways what’s going on with them might be useful.”

Leach, “Talking to animals“

And cats?

According to French, our feline friends could already be one step ahead of us. While their communication may not be as sophisticated as that of pack animals like dogs (because they don’t need it as much to survive), she believes an AI could be more sensitive to understanding body language and signals that are already there.

Leach, “Talking to animals

Cats are apt to behave like rabbits; they will hide and conceal pain rather than advertise a weakened state to the world. In any event, many would prefer to suffer a great deal rather than go to the vet.

That’s not irrational on the cat’s part; it’s just non-rational. The cat won’t realize that the reasons he is suffering less after he gets back from the vet are 1) the injection he was given; 2) the pills that are forced down his throat every eight hours; 3) the stitches he desperately wants to rip out; and 4) the wide paper collar that prevents him from ripping out the stitches, which totally frustrates him.

To him, that’s all just human intrusion and manhandling. The correct way to handle his problems, in his view, would be to hide in the cellar until he feels better. Yes, he would probably get worse and die down there. But he doesn’t know that. That’s the sort of thing humans know. It’s why some humans become vets.

What animals can’t tell us

Which is why I was puzzled by Dr. French’s later comment,

French said that this “mind-blowing” advancement could help us learn about animals all over the world. But she pointed out that they might communicate some things we may not want to hear.

“Can you imagine hearing first-hand an account from an animal whose family and environment have been destroyed by humans? In that respect, I’d love it to come sooner, so that people can hear those messages.”

Leach, “Talking to animals

It’s a safe bet that we will not hear that first-hand account, certainly not as if it were told by a human. Telling such a story requires a fair amount of generalization and abstraction. A dog may be able to tell us (with AI providing prompts and interpreting) that he is afraid of wolves but he won’t tell us that his brother was killed by a wolf out at the cabin two years ago.

AI can do a lot of things but it won’t given animals rational faculties that it does not have itself.

You may also wish to read: The real reason why only human beings speak. Language is a tool for abstract thinking—a necessary tool for abstraction—and humans are the only animals who think abstractly. (Michael Egnor)