AI Helps Museum Animal Specimens Tell Stories

Animals at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Zoology can chat with visitors over the phone using artificial intelligence.

More than 12 specimens, from an American cockroach and a dodo to a red panda and a fin whale skeleton, will be given the 'ability to talk' thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Animals at the Zoological Museum will share their stories, even their experiences after death.

The museum has one of the most complete dodo skeletons in the world. (Photo: University of Cambridge).

Equipped with their own voices and personalities, the specimens can converse via voice or text via visitors' phones. The technology allows them to describe their time on Earth and the challenges they face, in the hope of reversing human indifference to the biodiversity crisis.

Museums use AI in many different ways, but ' this is the first application that allows specimens to speak for themselves , ' said Jack Ashby, assistant director of the museum . 'Part of the experiment was to see if giving animals their own voices would make people think differently about them. Could you change the public's perception of a cockroach by giving it a voice?' said Jack Ashby.

The project was developed by Nature Perspectives , a company that builds AI models to enhance the connection between humans and the natural world. For each specimen, the AI ​​is given detailed information about where it lives, its natural habitat, how it came into the collection, along with all the information about the species it represents.

A fin whale skeleton hangs from the roof of the museum. (Photo: University of Cambridge).

The animals change their voices and language to match the age of their interlocutors and can converse in more than 20 languages, including Spanish and Japanese. The platypus has an Australian accent, the red panda has a Himalayan accent, and the mallard has an English accent. Through live conversations, Ashby hopes visitors will learn more than what is on the specimen labels.

Conversations between visitors and specimens will be analyzed to better understand what information people want to know. The AI ​​suggests some questions, such as asking the fin whale ' tell me about ocean life ,' but visitors can ask whatever they want.

'When you talk to these animals, they really come across as individuals with their own personalities, which is a very strange experience,' Ashby shares .