More than a dozen taxidermied animals the Museum of Zoology will be given voices via AI in a month-long project, starting from 15th October.

The exhibit, which can be accessed in twenty different languages, will allow skeletons, taxidermy, and whole preserved animals to share their stories through QR codes on visitor’s phones. The museum hopes that enabling people to connect with the animals via AI will increase awareness of the biodiversity crisis.

Included in the project are the remains of the long extinct dodo, a fin whale skeleton, a stuffed red panda, an American cockroach and a freeze-dried platypus.

The technology enables the animals to describe their time on Earth and the challenges their species faced.

Jack Ashby, the museum’s assistant director stated that The Museum of Zoology is the first to use AI from the exhibit’s point of view, claiming that: “Part of the experiment is to see whether by giving these animals their own voices, people think differently about them. Can we change the public perception of a cockroach by giving it a voice?”

Nature Perspectives, the AI company responsible for the model, works to strengthen people’s connection with the natural environment. Their projects simulate non-human responses to connect people to the natural world.

Gal Zanir, co-founder of Nature Perspectives added: “One of the most magical aspects of the simulations is that they’re age-adaptive. For the first time, visitors of all ages will be able to ask the specimens anything they like”.

The conversations between visitors and exhibits will be tracked, enabling the museum to gain new insights into responses. The University is calling the exhibit a “unique conversational experience”.

Professor Chris Sandbrook, Director of the University’s Masters in Conservation Leadership programme remarked: “Artificial Intelligence is opening up exciting new opportunities to connect people with non-human life, but the impacts need to be carefully studied. I’m delighted to be involved in exploring how the Nature Perspectives pilot affects the way people feel about and understand the species they ‘meet’ in the Museum of Zoology.”

The Nature Perspectives AI experiment runs from the 15th October to 15th November 2024.