If the pickled bodies, partial skeletons and stuffed carcasses that fill museums seem a little, well, quiet, fear not. In the latest coup for artificial intelligence, dead animals will be given new life to share their stories – and even their experiences of the afterlife.
More than a dozen exhibits, ranging from an American cockroach and the remains of a dodo, to a stuffed red panda and a fin whale skeleton, will receive the gift of conversation on Tuesday for a month-long project at Cambridge University . Museum of Zoology.
Equipped with personalities and accents, the dead creatures and models can communicate by voice or text through visitors’ mobile phones. The technology allows the animals to describe their time on Earth and the challenges they have faced, hoping to reverse apathy towards the biodiversity crisis.
“Museums use AI in many different ways, but we think this is the first application where we’re talking from the point of view of the object,” said Jack Ashby, the museum’s assistant director. “Part of the experiment is to see if, by giving these animals their own voices, people think differently about them. Can we change the public perception of a cockroach by giving it a voice?”
The project was designed by Nature perspectivesa company that builds AI models to help strengthen the connection between humans and the natural world. For each exhibit, the AI is fed specific details about where the specimen lived, its natural environment and how it arrived in the collection, along with all available information about the species it represents.
The exhibits change their tone and language to match the age of the person they are talking to, and can converse in over 20 languages, including Spanish and Japanese. The platypus has an Australian twist, the red panda is subtly Himalayan, and the mallard sounds like a Brit. Through direct conversations with the exhibits, Ashby hopes that visitors will learn more than fits on the labels that accompany the specimens.
As part of the project, the conversations visitors have with the exhibits will be analyzed to get a better picture of the information people want on samples. While the AI suggests a number of questions, such as asking the fin whale “tell me about life in the open sea”, visitors can ask whatever they want.
“When you talk to these animals, they really come across as personalities, it’s a very strange experience,” Ashby said. “I started by asking things like ‘where did you live?’ and ‘how did you die?’, but ended with much more human questions.”
When asked what it used to eat, the museum’s dodo, one of the most complete specimens in the world, described its Mauritian diet of fruit, seeds and the occasional small invertebrate, explaining how its strong, curved beak was perfect for cracking open the tough fruit. from the tambalacoque tree.
The AI-enhanced exhibit also shared its views on whether humans should try to bring back the species through cloning. “Even with advanced techniques, the return of the dodo will require not only our DNA, but the delicate ecosystem of Mauritius that supports our species,” it said. “It is a poignant reminder that the true essence of any life goes beyond the genetic code – it is intricately woven into its natural habitat.”
The fin whale skeleton, which hangs from the museum roof, has been afforded a similar level of apparent thoughtfulness. Asked about the most famous person it met, he admitted that while he was alive, it did not have the chance to meet “famous” individuals as people see them. “But,” the AI-powered skeleton continued, “I like to think that anyone who stands below me and feels awe, reverence, and love for the natural world is someone of significance.”
