Communication is ubiquitous across the tree of life. It’s time we start listening.
Learn about who we are and why we believe listening across species matters.
Interspecies Internet (IIO) is a 501(c)(3) charity and a think-tank to advance interspecies communication towards conservation and understanding, with 11500+ members and affiliates, including leading sector professionals.
We facilitate tool-building, share research, and host global conversations that challenge anthropocentric thinking and center diverse forms of cognition.
Our story
IIO was founded by Dr. Vint Cerf (Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google and co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet), Peter Gabriel (musician and humanitarian activist), Dr. Neil Gershenfeld (professor at MIT and Director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms), and Dr. Diana Reiss (cognitive psychologist, marine mammal scientist, and professor and Director of the Animal Behavior and Conservation Graduate Programs at Hunter College, CUNY).
An intellectual partnership that expanded the scope of what’s possible at the crossroads of science, engineering, language, philosophy, ethics and arts.
In 2013, Interspecies Internet garnered substantial attention with the presentation of the TED Talk "An Interspecies Internet? An Idea In Progress." Since the kick-off, our mission remains unchanged: to ensure that scientific breakthroughs in animal communication encourage commitment to valuing and conserving life's biodiversity and its manifold domains of cognition.
Building a Global Community
Throughout the years, we have convened experts and enthusiasts both in person and online. Through invitation-only workshops, public conferences, and ongoing programs, we create forums where interdisciplinary specialists share and advance research while engaging broader audiences in vital conversations about animal intelligence, agency and communication. All public sessions are recorded and made freely available, ensuring that insights from our gatherings reach beyond participating researchers to inspire and inform the wider community.
To further expand our impact, we host a monthly lecture series featuring leading researchers, publish a regular newsletter to over 2,700 recipients, and maintain open Slack channels where more than 1,000 members contribute to ongoing discourse surrounding animal communication, cognition, ethics, AI, and related fields.
Our Approach
Interspecies Internet exists to encourage, explore, and facilitate the creation of ethical and technical infrastructure for inter- and intraspecies communication, and aid the flow of information and data to advance the field. We believe this is only possible through networking multidisciplinary groups, driving meaningful collaborations across three core areas:
Tooling: Technology and Deployment
Equipping: Education and Resources
Connecting: Discourse Development and Public Engagement
New forms of knowledge emerge at the intersection of different fields: when computer scientists work with biologists, designers engage with AI researchers, or linguists collaborate with ethologists. So, while the proposition of an interspecies internet seems like one lifted from the pages of a science fiction novel, it is in fact rooted in a rich history of real-world inquiry spanning animal communication, bioacoustics, behavioral ecology, animal cognition, conservation, neurobiology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many more.
The internet was initially designed as a system to connect computers, quickly came to be used to connect humans instead—a shift that unlocked remarkable and unforeseen impacts. An interspecies internet is inspired by this potential. It envisions the evolution of a shared interactive and sensory environment for planetary connectivity that acts as a perceptual tool and opens new windows into the minds of animals.
Interspecies communication isn’t a possibility from a distant future; it is already underway and reshaping our relationship to the natural world.
For centuries, humans have tried to understand animal intelligence and communication: from decoding dances to designing artificial languages and playback experiments with a variety of animals. These efforts have continuously challenged us to rethink what it means to be cognitive, sentient, and social. Now, AI and ML may help us to truly begin understanding the communication systems of other species on their own terms.
Imagine the radical transformations and cultural awakening that could follow from these discoveries: new strategies for conservation, urban planning that promotes multispecies coexistence, strengthened Indigenous stewardship, mitigation of human-wildlife conflict, the development of new environmental policies and legal frameworks that protect the self-worlds of nonhuman life, and even contribute to fields like exobiology.
Interspecies communication offers a path not just to understanding other beings, but to newfound affinity, safeguarding biodiversity and the rich cultural forms of all life. It’s about co-creating a future for planetary flourishing.
You can learn more about the researchers and the history of the field of animal communication in our Hall of Fame page and Advisory Group section.
From Science Fiction to Global Movement
“Harnessing technology to facilitate communication with other animals and helping us decode the myriad forms of communication used by other species is a challenge that both befits humanity and benefits us in the long run.”
Harnessing technology to facilitate communication with other animals and helping us decode the myriad forms of communication used by other species is a challenge that both befits humanity and benefits us in the long run.
— Dr. Diana Reiss
