it completely negates a very long history of destruction wrought by Anglo-European religions, cultures and economies, and the very entrenched hierarchisation of white humans over every other existence.
this is utter bullshit. placing the responsibility for moving people to stop destroying ecosystems (and with it, ourselves) on the ability to hear the pain of animals is delusional. the people causing destruction do not care what human lives are lost, let alone what ecosystems
thirdly: the quote “If we could communicate with animals, ask them questions and receive answers—no matter how simple those questions and answers might turn out to be—the world might soon be moved enough to at least start the process of halting our runaway destruction of life.”
encoded with the same biases as its creators is a very foundational question here
Then the question of AI: so many scholars like Ruha Benjamin and others have very clearly shown the biases within AI's "objectivity" as a system built within frameworks of white supremacy and racist capitalism. how AI would be equipped to be an interlocutor when the system itself is inherently
social, cultural, physiological, psychological ways of being and making sense of the world.
naming and ultimately being able to "know" what others are saying or communicating. secondly: the intervention, without permission, of the listener - who takes on the right to listen in, and the entitlement to claim an ability to translate into terms that are limited by our own
firstly: the anthropomorphic urge to "bridge" communication between humans and nonhumans relies on both an erasure of translatability (the assumption that anyone trained in Western philosophy, science can understand everything is preceded on the delusion of capturing
thank you to @mnailatikau.bsky.social for sending me this. i want to briefly comment on how dangerous this line of thinking is: that 1. we as Anglo-Europeans have the right to meddle in nonhuman species communication and 2. that AI is a viable medium of translation
Researchers believe that artificial intelligence may allow us to speak to other species.