The (m)Otherhood of Meep (the bat translator)

The (m)Otherhood of Meep (the bat translator), is an audio interpreter for Grey-Headed Flying Fox vocalizations, drawing from previous scientific research on flying fox vocalizations to interpret their voices into poetic and artistic form in real-time. It aims to provoke questions surrounding the diversity and inclusivity of AI corpuses with regards to nonhuman species, and evokes an interspecies bridge between species at the center of human/wildlife conflicts. To make the work, Google’s Teachable Machine has been trained on a corpus of collected and categorized vocalizations, resulting in a TensorFlow file that is given a visual display through JavaScript, connecting to an array of wording in English.

In recent years, use of open-source and/or easily accessible AI technology has swiftly raised significant questions surrounding bias, diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility of AI-related products. What is still left out of most current conversations of AI development and use are the ways in which these issues may also affect our relations with other species. Through this artwork, I assert that currently conversations of diversity and inclusivity must extend beyond the human and into conversations of multispecies ethics and futures, inclusive of other conscious, intelligent, and pain-feeling beings with whom our lives intersect. This artwork points to a future for machine learning trained to highlight the voices and expressions of historically and culturally Othered beings, and shows one possible outcome when AI research is centered around planetary care.