Animal-Machine Interaction Archives

May 11, 2024May 12, 2024

When Animals Meet Machines

The manuscript of the book “Non-Human Animals, Ethics and Engineering” (alternative title “Animals, Ethics and Engineering”) was sent to the publisher Jenny Stanford in May 2024. It contains 16 chapters on this topic, including by Clara Mancini (“Animal-Centered Technology and Sustainable Development”), Fiona French (“Designing and Crafting Systems for Non-Human Animals”), and Leonie Bossert together with Thilo Hagendorff (“Animals and AI: The Role of Animals in AI Research and Application”). In “An Investigation into the Encounter Between Social Robots and Animals” (Chapter 12), Oliver Bendel “delves into the evolving landscape of social robots designed to interact with animals, dissecting the intricate dynamics of these interactions and their ethical ramifications” (Information from the editors). The philosopher of technology also presents his own projects, such as concepts and prototypes of animal-friendly machines, developed in the context of machine ethics, animal-machine interaction, and social robotics. The editors are Rosalyn W. Berne and Madeline A. Kibler from the University of Virginia. The book is scheduled for publication in late summer or fall 2024.

March 20, 2024March 20, 2024

“The Animal Whisperer” Project Starts

On March 18, 2024, the kick-off meeting for the project “The Animal Whisperer” took place at the FHNW School of Business. It was initiated by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, who has been working on animal-computer interaction and animal-machine interaction for many years. Nick Zbinden, a student of business information systems, has been recruited to work on the project. As part of his final thesis, he will develop three GPT-4-based applications that can be used to analyze the body language and environment of cows, horses and dogs. The aim is to avert danger to humans and animals. For example, a hiker can receive a recommendation on their smartphone not to cross a pasture if a mother cow and her calves are present. All they have to do is call up the application and take a photo of the area. Nick Zbinden will evaluate literature and conduct several expert interviews to find out more about the situation of farm and domestic animals and their behavior. He will demonstrate the possibilities, but also the limitations of multimodal language models in this context. The results will be available in August 2024 (Image: DALL-E 3).

November 29, 2023November 29, 2023

New Channel on Animal Law and Ethics

The new YouTube channel “GW Animal Law Program” went online at the end of November 2023. It collects lectures and recordings on animal law and ethics. Some of them are from the online event “Artificial Intelligence & Animals”, which took place on 16 September 2023. The speakers were Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (FHNW University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland), Yip Fai Tse (University Center for Human Values, Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University), and Sam Tucker (CEO VegCatalyst, AI-Powered Marketing, Melbourne). Other videos include “Tokitae, Reflections on a Life: Evolving Science & the Need for Better Laws” by Kathy Hessler, “Alternative Pathways for Challenging Corporate Humanewashing” by Brooke Dekolf, and “World Aquatic Animal Day 2023: Alternatives to the Use of Aquatic Animals” by Amy P. Wilson. In his talk, Oliver Bendel presents the basics and prototypes of animal-computer interaction and animal-machine interaction, including his own projects in the field of machine ethics. The YouTube channel can be accessed at www.youtube.com/@GWAnimalLawProgram/featured.

September 3, 2023September 3, 2023

Artificial Intelligence & Animals

The online event “Artificial Intelligence & Animals” will take place on 16 September 2023. “AI experts and attorneys will discuss the intersection of AI and animals in this UIA Animal Law Commission and GW Animal Law webinar” (Website Eventbrite) Speakers are Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland), Yip Fai Tse (University Center for Human Values, Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University), and Sam Tucker (CEO VegCatalyst, AI-Powered Marketing, Melbourne). Panelists are Ian McDougall (Executive Vice President and General Counsel, LexisNexis London), Jamie McLaughlin (Animal Law Commission Vice President, UIA), and Joan Schaffner (Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University). Oliver Bendel “has been thinking on animal ethics since the 1980s and on information and machine ethics since the 1990s”. “Since 2012, he has been systematically researching machine ethics, combining it with animal ethics and animal welfare. With his changing teams, he develops animal-friendly robots and AI systems.” (Website Eventbrite)

December 23, 2022December 23, 2022

Minding Animals 2024

After an hiatus of six years, Minding Animals will return, with a conference tentatively scheduled to be held 11 – 17 July, 2024. This was announced by the organizers in a message dated December 19, 2022. “Just like the postponed 2021 conference, Minding Animals 5 (MAC5) will be hosted by the Centre for Compassionate Conservation (CfCC) in the Transdisciplinary School at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).” (Message from Minding Animals International) The organizers refer to the Minding Animals Bulletin 53 regarding the vision of the conference and the preparation of the authors. “We believe that the greatest threat posed to the planet, to all planetary life, human or nonhuman animal, plant or otherwise, including the current pandemic, is the intersection of animal agriculture and the climate crisis. Hence, the urgency and criticality of climate as the key theme.” (Minding Animals Bulletin 53) Possible subtopics include “The biodiversity crisis and climate change”, “Rewilding and compassionate conservation”, “The animal industrial complex”, “Animals, the circular economy and sustainable food systems”, and “Animals in development and food sovereignty”.

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022

Face Recognition for Bears in the Alps

At the end of the ACI conference, the “Paper Session 6” was held, which was titled “Investigating Human-Animal Relations”. Sarah Webber (University of Melbourne) gave a talk on “Watching Animal-Computer Interaction: Effects on Perceptions of Animal Intellect”. In the experiment, people observed orangutans interacting with computer applications. It was examined how they changed their judgments regarding the animals’ intelligence and behavior. The talk that followed came from Alexandra Morgan (Northumbria University) and was titled “Blind dogs need guides too: towards technological support for blind dog caregiving”. She addressed the needs of blind dogs and showed what gadgets are on the market to assist them. Her team developed an app called “My Blind Dogo” that could help owners of blind dogs. The session ended with a talk on “A Face Recognition System for Bears: Protection for Animals and Humans in the Alps” by Oliver Bendel (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland). He presented an integrated system with cameras, robots, and drones that Ali Yürekkirmaz and he had designed. The ACI took place from 5 to 8 December 2022 in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the world’s leading conference on animal-computer interaction. More information on the conference via www.aciconf.org/aci2022.

November 1, 2022November 1, 2022

Accepted Papers of ACI’22

The conference program for ACI’22 will be available in the course of November. In the meantime, the website lists the accepted papers in alphabetical order. Among them are the papers “A Face Recognition System for Bears: Protection for Animals and Humans in the Alps” (Oliver Bendel and Ali Yürekkirmaz), “A Framework for Training Animals to Use Touchscreen Devices for Discrimination Tasks” (Jennifer Cunha and Corinne Renguette), “Politicising Animal-Computer Interaction: an Approach to Political Engagement with Animal-Centred Design” (Clara Mancini, Orit Hirsch-Matsioulas, and Daniel Metcalfe), and “TamagoPhone: A framework for augmenting artificial incubators to enable vocal interaction between bird parents and eggs” (Rebecca Kleinberger, Megha Vemuri, Janelle Sands, Harpreet Sareen, Janet M. Baker). ACI2022 will take place 5-8 December 2022, hosted by Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

September 11, 2022September 11, 2022

Defining Tomorrow

Animal-computer interaction (ACI) “is a rapidly growing field, which focuses on the interaction between animals and computing-enabled technology and for which the International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction is the main convention venue” (Website ACI2022). ACI2022 will take place 5-8 December 2022, hosted by Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. The “Emerging Work” track reflects early stage efforts that either: “1) will be of interest to the ACI community and likely to generate insightful, instructional, and/or spirited discussion, and/or 2) is early enough that it could benefit greatly from community feedback on direction, design, methods, etc.” (Website ACI2022) In this track, the paper “A Face Recognition System for Bears: Protection for Animals and Humans in the Alps” by Oliver Bendel and Ali Yürekkirmaz was accepted. It fits very well with this year’s conference theme, “Defining Tomorrow”. “The theme acknowledges the rapid growth in technology for animals with new products coming onto the market, normalising the use of technology in many human-animal relationships, and asks: where should we go next?” (Website ACI2022)

August 9, 2022August 9, 2022

AI Ethics and Animals

The impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on non-human animals has been researched by Oliver Bendel for several years. He has made it his task to complement the discipline of animal-computer interaction, which was founded by Clara Mancini, with the discipline of animal-machine interaction. His most recent paper is “Passive, Active, and Proactive Systems and Machines for the Protection and Preservation of Animals and Animal Species”, published February 25, 2022, in Frontiers of Animal Science. Also becoming active in this field now is the famous ethicist Peter Singer. Together with his co-author Yip Fai Tse, he published the article “AI ethics: the case for including animals” in July 2022. From the abstract: “The ethics of artificial intelligence, or AI ethics, is a rapidly growing field, and rightly so. While the range of issues and groups of stakeholders concerned by the field of AI ethics is expanding, with speculation about whether it extends even to the machines themselves, there is a group of sentient beings who are also affected by AI, but are rarely mentioned within the field of AI ethics – the nonhuman animals. This paper seeks to explore the kinds of impact AI has on nonhuman animals, the severity of these impacts, and their moral implications. We hope that this paper will facilitate the development of a new field of philosophical and technical research regarding the impacts of AI on animals, namely, the ethics of AI as it affects nonhuman animals.” (Peter Singer and Yip Fai Tse 2022) In the text, the authors write: “Of the hundreds of AI ethics related papers we reviewed in this project, we only found four that concern the impacts of AI on animals, in a general way, and discuss the relevant ethical implications. They are: ‘Towards animal-friendly machines’ by Oliver Bendel, ‘AI Ethics and Value Alignment for Nonhuman Animals’ by Soenke Ziesche, ‘Moral Consideration of Nonhumans in the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence’ by Andrea Owe and Seth Baum and ‘Animals and AI. The role of animals in AI research and application – An overview and ethical evaluation’ by Leonie Bossert and Thilo Hagendorf.” (Peter Singer and Yip Fai Tse 2022) The article will certainly give the young disciplines a further boost.