Digital technologies, in particular AI, do not only have the potential to greatly impact the lives of humans, but also of non-human animals. These technologies can be used positively, for example by helping us replace animal experiments or making traffic safer for non-human animals. They also hold promise for more just and meaningful human-animal relationships. For example, AI is being used to decode animal languages, which may enable interspecies communication and lead to more awareness of how non-human animals experience the world. This could potentially lead to more empathy for them. However, digital technologies also carry significant risks for the lives of non-human animals, and they could disrupt human-animal relationships. What happens if interspecies communication platforms are exploited to hunt non-human animals more effectively, for instance?  How do we ensure that the generated knowledge is not simply used to entrench human power over other animals?

In this project, we examine the impacts of digital technologies on non-human animals and the human-animal relationship across several different applications, in particular large language models, interspecies translation platforms, precision livestock farming, and conservation biotechnology. The ultimate goal is to make sure that digital technologies are developed ethically, taking non-human animals’ interests into account. In order to do this it is essential to include the perspective of non-human animals. This perspective so far has been largely ignored in the ethics of technology and discussions about artificial intelligence.

Using the lens of multispecies justice theory, we want to gain a moral understanding of the multifaceted impact of digital technology on human-animal relationships. Ultimately, we aim to offer designers, policy makers, and users of digital technologies the tools to analyse the impact of AI on the human-animal relationship, and provide them with both ethical and legal guidelines in order to develop them in a just way.