38 Comments
User's avatar
Nick Parker's avatar

Expanding AI consciousness through interspecies communication is fantastic! People love dogs, and now we can learn to actually hear them.

Kartikeya's avatar

Excited to see the AOCs and Sanders of the world argue against this one. Data centers will get no better advocates than man’s best friends

Praful Mathur's avatar

Hopefully we can figure out a productive way to ensure that local communities benefit and don't get harmed by the energy production these centers require. Though we agree man's best friend has followed us through every frontier and now in the AI age too!

Michael Amicangelo's avatar

The First Consumer-Scale Interspecies Foundation Model ???

Without batting an eye.

Things are getting down right weird.

Normalcy is cooked........

Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross's avatar

It turns out the Singularity isn’t just vibes.

Praful Mathur's avatar

Normalcy ended with the Mayan calendar. But yes that's the goal please share this with your friends with dogs (and soon cats).

Ari Nessel's avatar

I am curious how humanity will respond to what pigs, cows, turkeys, and chickens communicate to us once we can decode their emotions and thoughts, and whether this will encourage humans to adopt a broader ethic? Or whether humanity will sustain cognitive dissonance so we don't feel compelled to change the way we treat them.

Praful Mathur's avatar

Unclear given people also engaged in slavery and have sustained the effects of slavery to present day policies. I think the more pertinent question today is how do we expand the rights for companion animals. Whereas farmed animals and working animals operate in a very different legal landscape where there are consistent cultural & political forces that make it hard to achieve sustained rights expansions. EU has seen some expansion but even there we see that the enforcement lags the written law.

Andy Bell's avatar

Thank you for the wonderful article 👍

Ken Flack's avatar

Signed up on waitlist immediately. Long known a bond with a dog is inseparable, and their comprehension of language, and smell is far superior to ours. We also have common motivational interests ( food), companionship, and even jealousy to name a few… I need that collar !

Tom's avatar

Companiondogproject.org has a new database maybe Praful Mathur would be interested in the work Carolyn Kelly is doing with Companion Dog Project

Amit's avatar

I'd like to volunteer to work with the team if possible. Please let me know who I can email my CV to

Albert N's avatar

Thank you for this Substack and for consistently writing about moonshots in a way that makes them feel not just technically plausible but imaginatively alive.

This one really captivated me. The idea that AI’s next frontier is to listen and intepret across the boundary between species, feels profound.

It also immediately brought to mind The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst, and the screenplay adaptation by Jamie Linden ( currently unproduced I believe). Have you read either? It is such a thought-provoking story: A dog is the sole witness of a pivotal act but cannot say what happened.

Enjoyed your essay, and genuinely imagination-expanding moonshot.

Praful Mathur's avatar

I will have to read that one

Erik Hochstein's avatar

Only the first step - and often the most important one … I am into longevity - imagine what good sensors and all the new things coming can track in our body and find ways to improve it - I don’t believe in a magic pill to fix it all - but if you (or your personal agent) know all this personal health … wow

Praful Mathur's avatar

Yes this applied to dogs & cats is our future.

Owen  Dall Sotomayor's avatar

Just signed up. Can wait to see how this works. Thanks much, Alex!

Praful Mathur's avatar

Incredible! Thank you for your support.

John Baptist's avatar

All is Mind and Sound forms. Harmonic Resonance of Mind is the map of the Noosphere.

Andy Bell's avatar

Would be interested in your thoughts on the possibility of using AI to understand mycelial networks

Praful Mathur's avatar

Anything is possible in this new world and this is something I'd love to help out.