Interspecies Internet

Interspecies Internet is a global multidisciplinary think-tank working to facilitate the acceleration of interspecies communication, with 4500+ members and affiliates including leading sector professionals. A primary premise of the project is that the Interspecies Internet could be used to link non-human species that are not collocated and leverage computational capacity to support the use of AI/ML methods in transducing signals from one species into coherent signals for another.

Our Mission

The Interspecies Internet’s mission is to encourage, explore and facilitate interfaces for interspecies communication and approaches for deciphering the communication of non-human animals. With the aim to positively impact species conservation, welfare, empathy, compassion, enrichment, sustainability, and understanding. We bring together a multidisciplinary group drawn from the sciences, arts and humanities in a rich collaborative forum to advance the understanding and appreciation of the mental lives and intelligence of the diverse species with which we share our planet.

Our Story

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).

Interspecies Internet garnered substantial attention with the presentation of their 2013 TED talk An Interspecies Internet? An Idea In Progress. In July of 2019, MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, Google, and the Jeremy Coller Foundation co-hosted the first Interspecies Internet workshop, gathering a community working in this and related fields to review progress, present relevant research and plan future activities. The invitation-only event was the first in-person launch of the initiative and was attended at maximum capacity. The day saw introductions from Jane Goodall and lightning talks from leading scientists.

While the Covid-19 pandemic prevented a 2020 in-person event there was great success with the Interspecies Conversations Digital Workshop and Public Conference. The invitation-only scientific workshop on July 17th, 2020 was attended by 115 academics and scientists, while the public conference the following day saw an audience of 723. The event was truly global, with a live broadcast stream reaching six continents that is now available online. The audiences of both days now make up an Interspecies Internet network comprised of thousands of members and affiliates, including an open Slack channel with hundreds of contributing users.

“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, Co-founder and Chair