What separates humans from other species? The answer to that question may no longer be language.
With the help of artificial intelligence, robotics and new recording technologies, scientists are edging closer to understanding whale communications and to perhaps one day even holding a conversation. The advances could strengthen legal protections for these animals, including the most powerful safeguard of all: rights.
Katie, who covers international environmental justice and the rights of nature, explains how scientists are using AI to cross the language barrier with whales, how close they are to actually conversing, and what new research says about the “immense new legal world” that could emerge from it.
About This Video
Perhaps you noticed: This video, like all the news we publi…
What separates humans from other species? The answer to that question may no longer be language.
With the help of artificial intelligence, robotics and new recording technologies, scientists are edging closer to understanding whale communications and to perhaps one day even holding a conversation. The advances could strengthen legal protections for these animals, including the most powerful safeguard of all: rights.
Katie, who covers international environmental justice and the rights of nature, explains how scientists are using AI to cross the language barrier with whales, how close they are to actually conversing, and what new research says about the “immense new legal world” that could emerge from it.
About This Video
Perhaps you noticed: This video, like all the news we publish, is available for free. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
Katie Surma
Reporter, Pittsburgh
Katie Surma is a reporter at Inside Climate News covering the rights of nature movement and international environmental justice. Her work has a strong focus on the intersection of human rights and the environment. Before joining ICN, she practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation. Her journalism work has been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the Society of International Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and others. Katie has a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, an LLM in international rule of law and security from ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, a J.D. from Duquesne University, and was a History of Art and Architecture major at the University of Pittsburgh. Katie lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.