This Nonprofit Wants To Use AI To Understand Animal Communication–And 2 Billionaires Are Backing It

Forbes

ChatGPT changed how humans view and interact with language. Here’s how the Earth Species Project is using new billionaire funding to build a similar model for animals.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2024/10/17/this-nonprofit-wants-to-use-ai-to-understand-animal-communicationand-two-billionaires-are-backing-it/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, this non-profit wants to use AI to understand animal communication,

00:07and two billionaires are backing it.

00:10The Earth Species Project, a U.S.-based non-profit that aims to decode animal communication by using AI,

00:17announced $17 million in new grants from billionaires on Thursday,

00:22the organization shared exclusively with Forbes.

00:26Of the new funding, $10 million came from billionaire investor and entrepreneur Reed Hoffman's Aphorism Foundation,

00:33and the remaining $7 million is a three-year pledge from the Waverly Street Foundation,

00:38one of billionaire Lorene Powell Jobs' philanthropic vehicles.

00:43The Earth Species Project plans to use the funding, which amounts to more than five times its 2023 expenses,

00:50to quote, at least double the size of its AI research team.

00:54Its eight-person global research team is currently studying bird vocalization patterns to help with conversation efforts

01:01and working on an early-chat-GPT-esque model for animals, regardless of species.

01:06The organization's ultimate goal is for its research to shift humans' understanding of our place in the natural world,

01:13and in doing so, help with climate change and biodiversity.

01:18Aza Raskin, co-founder and president of the six-year-old Earth Species Project and a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum, says, quote,

01:26In the last two years, AI has shown us that anything that can be translated will be translated.

01:31Like the telescope that allowed us to discover that Earth was not the center of the solar system,

01:36I think our tools are going to let us look out at the universe and discover that humanity is not the center.

01:43In 2013, Raskin was listening to an NPR story about the gelato monkey's human-like vocalizations

01:49when he first wondered if animal communication could be decoded.

01:53Five years later, the three-time entrepreneur and former Mozilla designer co-founded the Earth Species Project

02:00with two other Silicon Valley alumni, Brit Selvattel, part of the founding team at Twitter,

02:05and Katie Zakarian, an early Facebook employee.

02:10The organization wants to make it possible for humans to communicate with other species,

02:14or at least understand what they are saying, by 2030.

02:18So far, it's done that by funding research on specific animals' vocalization patterns,

02:23including current projects with beluga whales, crows, and zebra finches.

02:28It's also done that by funding research through a more general, quote, foundation model,

02:33that it aims to evolve into something like what ChatGPT is for human communication.

02:38The earliest version of the general model was released in 2022

02:42and identifies patterns within a trove of audio recordings of animals across species

02:46through a variety of machine learning techniques.

02:49One such technique, for example, is a, quote, embedding,

02:53which is like a network graph that groups sounds and images by similarity.

02:57As the organization gets more data and updates their models, more patterns will appear,

03:02eventually allowing us to extrapolate so-called, quote, meaning from that data

03:07based on their similarity, without needing any underlying knowledge of what the data means.

03:13Since its founding, Earth Species Project has published five peer-reviewed papers,

03:17with a sixth in the pipeline, and self-published three papers.

03:21Some are related to specific species and others to its foundation model.

03:25The Earth Species Project has largely run on donations from billionaires,

03:29in part thanks to its co-founder's roots in Silicon Valley.

03:32Raskin met Hoffman when he was working at Mozilla designing Firefox,

03:36and Hoffman was on the board.

03:38He first floated the idea of the Earth Species Project to Hoffman in 2015.

03:42Raskin says that Hoffman is, quote,

03:44fascinated by the philosophical implications of what happens when it's not just humans

03:49that have culture and have language,

03:51and what that means for the shift in the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature.

03:56Raskin says that he was introduced to Powell Jobs' Waverly Street Foundation in 2022

04:01through a mutual friend who was working to fight climate change.

04:05Per Raskin, making animals appear more so-called, quote,

04:08human could get people to care more about them and care about biodiversity,

04:12which would help sustain the planet and human life.

04:16For full coverage, check out Phoebe Liu's piece on Forbes.com.

04:22This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

04:35For more stories, visit nyseagrant.org

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