Engage with a Dodo: This Museum Offers a Unique Interactive Experience!

A scanned code, and that’s it! To be sure that the information delivered by the AI ​​is accurate, the answers are refined “based on a set of scientific data”.

Resurrecting endemic species (the dodo)?

As the use of AI reaches more and more areas of our daily life, it could also put itself at the service of History for individuals, in particular by resurrecting ancient endemic species which have unfortunately disappeared today. today.

At least that’s what the University of Cambridge Zoology Museum is experimenting with. The principle is simple: visitors can have a conversation with 13 specimens present in the museum. Among them, the red panda, a narwhal skeleton, a cockroach and even a dodo, this famous flightless bird, which has disappeared since the end of the 17th century.

What reaction will the public have?

Besides the obvious historical appeal of this installation, assistant director Jack Ashby also sees a certain sociological dimension to this experiment. “We're curious to see if this will work and if talking to animals will change people's attitudes towards them. Will the cockroach be more appreciated, for example, because its voice will be heard?

Far from “distorting” the establishment by integrating Artificial Intelligence, Jack Ashby told the BBC that this installation is a “an incredible opportunity for people to test emerging technology”. And chats are available for a number of people, with the conversation able to be conducted in 20 different languages.

Connecting the public more to specimens and nature

The initiative comes from a collaboration between the museum and the company Nature Perspectives, the aim of which is precisely to use AI to promote institutions to “engage the public” as the BBC points out. According to co-founder Gal Zanir, the speech of the specimens is developed accordingly;

  • from the simulated animal's point of view
  • scientific knowledge
  • unique traits of the species.

To our knowledge, no other museum offers this type of immersive first-person interaction with natural history entities/specimens, allowing “direct first-person dialogues with the animals themselves”Gal Zanir told the BBC.

Connecting the public more closely to different specimens, creating a more empathetic and direct link so that everyone feels concerned by the loss of biodiversity, this is what this installation could help to instil, according to the co-founder of the company.

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