About robotic sex dolls & gadgets to help people talk to their dogs

(Beth Clifton collage)

Amazon.com bets on profits in plug-in relationships

         SEATTLE––The Amazon.com folks,  with revenue of $136 billion a year,  know a thing or two about sales and communication.

Futurologist Will Higham must also know a thing or two about sales and communication,  because Amazon.com recently hired Higham to help them figure out how to make more money out of pet keepers and animal rescuers.

Prairie dogs pointed the way

Higham reportedly pointed Amazon.com toward ongoing research by Con Slobodchikoff,  author of the 2012 category best selling book Chasing Doctor Dolittle:  Learning the Language of Animals.

(See Chasing Doctor Dolittle:  Learning the Language of Animals.)

         Slobodchikoff,  a professor emeritus at the department of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University,  in 30 years of researching prairie dog communications found that their whistles and squeaks have all of the basic attributes of human language.

Con Slobodchikoff listens to what a prairie dog thinks of his ideas.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Meaning & nuance

Using electronic devices to pick up and interpret sounds made by prairie dogs that are normally inaudible to humans,  Slobodchikoff found considerable meaning and nuance which had eluded generations of previous researchers––but Slobodchikoff may have been the first to study prairie dogs,  long detested by ranchers,  for any reason other than to find ways to kill them.

Prairie dogs,  Slobodchikoff concluded,  “have words for different species of predator and can describe the color of clothes of a human,  or the coat of coyotes or dogs.”

According to Guardian newspapers correspondents Sarah Butler and Hannah Devlin,  “Slobodchikoff is now so convinced that other animals use similarly decipherable language that he is attempting to raise money to develop a cat and dog translation device.”

(Beth Clifton)

Consumer demand

Higham believes such a device has serious sales potential.

“The amount of money now spent on pets,”  Higham told Butler and Devlin,  after telling Amazon.com,  “means there is huge consumer demand for this. Somebody is going to put this together.”

Elaborated Slobodchikoff to Butler and Devlin,  “So many people would dearly love to talk to their dog or cat,  or at least find out what they are trying to communicate.  A lot of people talk to their dogs and share their innermost secrets. With cats,  I’m not sure what they’d have to say. A lot of times it might just be ‘you idiot,  feed me and leave me alone.’”

(Beth Clifton photo)

Gadgets already on the market

Reported Butler and Devlin,  “Amazon already sells one device that transfers a human voice into miaows using samples from 25 cats.  And the Nordic Society for Invention & Discovery,  a small Scandinavian research lab led by artists and marketers,  attempted to develop a dog translation device called No More Woof a few years ago.  The gadget, which looked like a Madonna-style headset,  supposedly measured brain activity to help communicate what the dog was thinking via a speaker on the dog’s collar.”

Will these gadgets sell?

(Beth Clifton collage)

Advised P.T. Barnum,  “There is a sucker born every minute.”

Elaborated H.L. Mencken,  “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the American public.”

Idea City

But will pet speech translators actually do anything useful?  An argument could be made that we keep dogs and cats in the first place,  not prairie dogs (for the most part),  because for thousands of years most humans,  dogs,  and cats have understood each other well enough to co-exist at least as harmoniously as humans and humans,  dogs and dogs,  or cats and cats.

The notion of people paying good money for pet speech translation devices reminded us somehow of a recent National Post column by Canadian public affairs commentator Barbara Kay,  who also often contributes to ANIMALS 24-7.

Barbara Kay & an avid listener.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Plant-based “meat” & robotic sex dolls

Opened Kay,  “At Toronto’s Idea City last month,  where I spoke,  no fewer than four presenters addressed the fast-approaching era when beef will be replaced by plant-based proteins.”

After discussing and favoring that possibility,  Kay observed that “Food and sex,  humankind’s strongest appetites,  share common social terrain.  Once basic security and comfort needs are met,  food and sex become our most intense preoccupations.”

Kay progressed to discussing the advent of robotic sex dolls,  about 2,000 of which are reportedly already in use in Japan,  South Korea,  and Spain.

Josh Tetrick & his chief cultured meat quality advisor.  (Facebook photo)

Cultured meat developers:  “No comment”

Cultured meat entrepreneurs Josh Tetrick of Hampton Creek and David Kay of Memphis Meats,  no relation to Barbara,  declined to comment for ANIMALS 24-7 on the relationship Barbara Kay perceives between their products-in-development and robotic sex dolls.

No matter;  Barbara Kay was off and running.

“Blow-up sex dolls used to be triggers for hilarity,”  she observed.  “Understandably,  since a painted,  woman-shaped balloon is so inhuman it is intrinsically funny.  But a sophisticated bot that looks,  feels,  moves and (powered by speech recognition programs) talks like a real person,  and which can even be created in a custom-desired image,  is nothing to laugh at.  That’s a frequently-imagined film fantasy come to life.

Conservative columnist “unoffended”

“To my surprise,”  Barbara Kay added,  “I’m feeling totally non-judgmental about the phenomenon.  I say ‘surprise,’  because I am pretty judgmental about other sex-bottish stuff like sperm donorship,  which sadly eliminates actual fathers from children’s lives, and yet arouses no indignation in the general public.  But in the case of controversial sex bots,  which seem to me a victimless fetish,  I find myself remarkably unoffended,  even somewhat boosterish at their potential for alleviating human distress.

Rex Harrison as Dr. Dolittle.

What this has to do with talking to dogs

“According to the report,”  Barbara Kay wrote,  “the four current manufacturers of advanced sex bots predict they will be used for sex therapy and as companions for the elderly, or as replicas for long-distance partners.”

The drive to communicate,  like the drive to eat and procreate,  could also be considered basic to animal existence,  especially human existence.  We are among the most communicative of animals,  for which reason we have throughout history applied our most advanced technology to helping us communicate more information faster,  farther,  more accurately,  and––often––more deceptively,  too.

Robotic sex dolls and pet speech translation devices would tend to work to opposite effect,  yet converging on a common aspect of human behavior.

(Beth Clifton photo)

“Social isolation for some demographics is a constant”

As Barbara Kay continued,  “Social isolation for some demographics is a constant in human life,  one way or another.  Video games are socially isolating.  Teleworking is socially isolating.  Netflix is socially isolating.  Go back in time,  and lack of telephones in rural life was socially isolating.”

The sales pitch for both robotic sex dolls and pet speech translation devices is that they might help socially isolated individuals to feel less so,  whether by having a robot instead of a girlfriend,  or by talking to their dogs and cats and having the animals say something relevant back.

At the same time,  both robotic sex dolls and pet speech translation devices promise to require much less emotional investment for the customers than developing non-gadgetized empathic relationships with real partners,  and real animals without an electronic intermediary.  Simply put,  the buyers will not have to put as much time and effort into cultivating any sort of real-life relationship––or at least that illusion may be part of what gets them to shell out their money.

Penelope Smith & friend.

“Animal communicating”

We wondered whether “animal communicator” Penelope Smith,  of New River,  Arizona,  would view Slobodchikoff’s work to develop a pet speech translator as either a potential aid to her work,  or as competition.

As Smith’s Anima Mundi Incorporated web site introduces her,  “For over thirty years,”  actually more like 46 years now,  since she started in 1971,  “Penelope has been the founding pioneer for the field whose name she originated,  interspecies telepathic communication.  Author of the popular classic books in the field,  Animal Talk,  When Animals Speak,  Animals in Spirit,  many audio recordings,  and editor of Species Link magazine,  Penelope has held the hub of the growing community of animal communicators worldwide for decades.”

Snow White. (Walt Disney Inc.)

What is telepathy?

A skeptic might ask why telepaths need printed literature,  when they have telepathy.  But why do any of us need external storage devices,  when we have computers?  Random access memory can only hold and organize a limited amount of information at a time,  albeit that the limit is constantly expanding.

Further,  not everyone interested in learning telepathy,  if such an ability really exists and can be learned,  is a telepath  yet.

Smith and other “animal communicators” believe “animal communication,”   which is not necessarily the same thing as “telepathy” in the usual sense of the word,  is a skill,  not a mystical ability,  which can be taught and learned.

(Beth Clifton photo)

What is “animal communication”?

Many “animal communicators” believe that they are telepaths,  but some do not.  Many others hold a more practical and quantifiable perspective on how wordless communication with animals occurs.

For most,  including those who profess to be telepaths,  the essence of “animal communication”––no matter what the transmission model––is translating how animals express themselves into words,  which are the units of meaning that humans use to share ideas which for animals might be transmitted wholly by scent,  taste,  non-verbal sounds,  or motion.

Wordless communication among animals probably occurs with a frequency and intensity that most humans may have difficulty even imagining,  because the messages are transmitted and received in so many ways other than in speech and writing.   It is possible to become better attuned to what animals “say,”  and to “talk” with them,  much as the fictional Dr. Dolittle did,  by just becoming better at perceiving the meaning of non-verbal communications.

(Beth Clifton collage)

What does a dog turd say?

Some dog people,  cat people,  and  horse people are quite obviously better than others at recognizing and responding to the expressions and gestures of the animals they know best,  even if they cannot explain why.

As trackers,  Beth and I learn constantly from bent blades of grass,  broken twigs, droppings,  a faint whiff of urine,  and many other clues that elude most others.  After decades of practice we sometimes “read” a story about wildlife in our surroundings before consciously realizing which clues tipped us off.  But other times we are puzzled,  because something––for example,  a dog turd in an unusual place––has chapters of meaning for the dog who left it and the dog who finds it,  without that meaning translating easily into any sort of verbal message.

We can make an informed guess about what it means,  but our dog is not necessarily going to affirm or refute it in “words” no matter how sophisticated a pet speech translation device we have,  because the dog may not respond to it in thoughts organized into verbiage,  or even with thinking on the verbal and cognitive side of his brain.

Elvis Presley on the Milton Berle Show, 1956.

The King’s English or geek-speak

Intuitive people might easily learn as much as we know about animal communication without actually studying tracking.  It really only requires paying attention––and realizing that not all messages,  even important messages,  are transmitted and shared in “language.”

The expertise of the most insightful animal handlers and the most skilled trackers could be perceived as telepathic,   including by the handlers and trackers,  even though there is nothing mystical or magical about it.  It is just a matter of having learned to a limited extent to think and perceive like a non-verbal animal.

The paranormal trappings of much discussion of “animal communicating” may seem silly,  but no more so than the notion of a pet speech translation device converting the thoughts of a dog into either the King’s English or geek-speak.

“Rudimentary gadgets”

E-mailed Smith in prompt response to our inquiry,  “I have found that these ‘translator’ devices of animal sounds are rudimentary gadgets and miss the specific and subtle communications that animals convey,  that can partly be picked up by good observation,  but mostly by connection to animals’ thoughts and feelings behind any sounds they convey.

“Con Slobodchikof has very painstakingly researched the sounds of certain prairie dogs,  compared them to their behavior and stimuli in the environment,  and decoded them,”  Smith continued.  “Some time last year I believe it was,  he indicated interest in my work and how it related to his in a conversation with Susan Eirich of Earthfire Institute wildlife sanctuary in Idaho.  We haven’t yet conversed.”

Merritt & Beth Clifton

So,  what will happen when they do?  Will telecommunication communicate harmoniously with telepathy,  or will that too require a translator?

And if it does,  will Amazon.com make a buck out of it?

Stay tuned.

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