Jane Goodall on generative AI

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve dreamed of understanding what animals are saying. How wonderful that is now a real possibility.” ― Dr. Jane Goodall Quick question – but first some context; bear with me. Animal research org Earth Species Project is using neural network AI, of the same sort that I use here to create personalized, conversational discovery interviews. What is ‘ESP’ they up to? They’re learning how to document, decode, and ultimately understand animal language, or communication, let’s call it. This means we can speak with them. Maybe this means I can conduct use Message Maps to conduct a discovery interview with a Baleen whale. Maybe it means we can provide animals with their own AI tools, so they can leverage their intelligence and finally overcome the problem of not having opposable thumbs. That’s interesting sci-fi but back to the question: if we can level the species playing field, or at least talk to more of them, can we also use generative AI to level the playing field for other people? We wanted that same outcome out of social media and mobile apps, but the results have been mixed at best. Maybe we can do better this time? *    *    * PS. Yesterday I announced a “pre-release” of Message Maps, in which you can use one part of the tool in exchange for feedback – there’s the official release notes https://github.com/roprice/messagemaps-community/releases/tag/v0.1.0-pre-alpha-Ausangate PPS. Speaking of AI and animals, there are more camelids on the mountain of Ausangate than there are open source LLMs bearing their homonyms