Interspecies Conversations
Lecture Series
[Postponed] Catherine Hobaiter, Ape Talk: Reimagining the Study of Great Ape Communication.
Explore the intricate world of interspecies communication, as Catherine investigates the signals used by great apes and challenges traditional approaches. Join us to delve deeper into understanding other species and the evolutionary origins of our own through reimagined study methods.
Tim Gardner, TweetyBERT: Uncovering Canary Song Syntax
Tim presents a groundbreaking self-supervised transformer model, TweetyBERT, for analyzing bird songs without human-labeled data. By operating directly on spectrograms, TweetyBERT offers insights into canary vocalizations' statistical structure, uncovering long-range rules shaping song sequences. This advancement promises rapid progress in understanding animal vocalizations, particularly for complex singers, eliminating the need for costly manual annotation.
Sophia Brueckner, Bowerbirds: Optimization, The Evolution of Aesthetics, and Art.
Explore the fascinating world of bowerbirds. Join Sophia and guest Professor Gail as they delve into thought-provoking questions: Do bowerbirds make art? Can humans or computers mimic their creative process? , and more!
Carl Safina, Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe
"Alfie and Me" tells the extraordinary tale of ecologist Carl Safina's unexpected bond with a wounded screech owl named Alfie. Through the Covid-19 lockdown, Alfie becomes a source of solace, challenging the boundaries between humans and the natural world. Safina explores the profound connections possible when we blur these boundaries and questions the losses from modern culture's detachment from the living world.
Lars Chittka, The Mind of a Bee
Discover the remarkable intelligence of bees as individuals. Lars Chittka, Professor of Sensory and Behavioral Ecology, presents decades of research, showcasing their ability to recognize faces, display emotions, count, use tools, solve problems, and more. He delves into the unique intricacies of bee brains, their evolution as foragers, and the ethical questions surrounding their consciousness and cognition.
Mirjam Knörnschild, Bats in translation
Bats are virtuous vocal communicators because their ability to echolocate requires sophisticated vocal control and precise auditory perception. Some bat species are capable of learning and modifying their vocalizations based on the auditory feedback of conspecifics, others are prolific singers with an extremely high vocal output or engage in vocal turn-taking. Social vocalizations of bats encode a substantial amount of information, such as individual identity, sex, group affiliation, motivational status, etc. Decoding this information enables receivers to make informed decisions on resource allocation, mate choice, territorial defense, and cooperation.
Rébecca Kleinberger, From DJ Macaw to Video-Flocking
In this presentation, Dr. Rébecca Kleinberger will present her research work at the intersection of new technology, animal-computer interaction, and the sonic environment. Drawing upon her extensive collaborative work with zoos, wildlife specialists, and conservation centers, Dr. Kleinberger's work primarily targets the enhancement of life for animals in managed care through auditory technological interventions.
Oscar Salguero, Interspecies Library: Books as Portals to Interspecies Futures
Interspecies Library is the first archive dedicated to the study and advancement of artists’ books exploring alternative interspecies futures. Founded in 2019 by Oscar Salguero, the growing collection aspires to reflect our changing attitudes towards the non-human as well as our evolving acknowledgement of their agency, intelligence, and wisdom.
Earth Species Project, Katie Zacarian & Sara Keen
Join CEO Katie Zacarian and Senior AI Research Scientist Sara Keen as they explore some of the latest developments in AI, unpack key steps on ESP’s technical roadmap toward decode, and delve into some of the successes and ongoing challenges inherent in using these technologies to expand our understanding of the non-human world.
Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Can machines learn how to behave?
Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP and Fellow at Google Research, where he leads an organization working on both basic research and new products in AI.
Dr Jennifer Mather, Octopuses as intelligent aliens from space: What?
Octopus intelligence is different and separate from that of the mammals that we know well. But is that any reason to declare them aliens and decide they came from outer space? This presentation looks at the evidence.
Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, Building the Dog Internet
Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, Lecturer from The University of Glasgow, will discuss her work around speculating on the dog-to-dog internet and her research on building a dog-to-human video caller.
Dylan Kerr, Tools for Thought: Artifacts from the History of Comparative Psychology
Interspecies Conversations with writer, editor, and researcher Dylan Kerr, Tools for Thought: Artifacts from the History of Comparative Psychology