Rapid progress in artificial intelligence could bring humans closer than ever to understanding—and potentially communicating with—animals. But as the technology advances, some researchers and advocacy groups are raising a new concern: whether decoding animal behavior may intrude on animals’ right to privacy.
Using machine learning, scientists are increasingly able to sort, analyze and even reproduce the calls, songs and signals animals use with one another. Supporters say these AI tools could transform the study of animal communication, offering deeper insight into how other species navigate their social worlds.
Yet the ethical implications are still catching up with the science. “One risk that is currently not taken into account in research ethics is the concern that we might be violating the privacy of animals by collecting data on their vocalizations and movements,” researchers wrote in an article published by Springer Nature.
The authors argue that privacy is not only a human concern. “An interest in privacy is an interest in controlling how you appear to others, and the complex social lives of many nonhuman animals offer strong support for thinking animals have this interest.”
Beyond privacy, experts warn that the ability to “speak” with animals could create broader risks for ecosystems if the technology is misused or disrupts natural behavior in the wild.
The controversy involves a technique known as “playback,” which is the practice of broadcasting recorded animal calls in the wild.
Biologist Vittorio Baglione, who has spent his career cataloging the calls of carrion crows, was blown away by how AI models could help sort his recordings and point out commonalities in specific cries.
Among the calls was one that Baglione described as essentially, “Hey! Come help!” as the crows would use it to summon others to help defend the nest, he told Bloomberg.
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But Baglione said his research and the breakthroughs in communication could be co-opted by hunters or anyone with ill-intent to lure in the crows.
“You can stress the animals. You can disrupt their social environment. You can pose conflicts between them, especially if you don’t really understand the meaning of the call,” the scientist said of such playback.
This is why playback remains controversial, as it takes advantage of an animal’s trust in a specific sound to make it act in whatever way the user wants, explained César Rodríguez-Garavito, director of the More-Than-Human Life, or MOTH, Program at New York University.
In his 2025 report on the development of AI models striving for animal communication, Rodríguez-Garavito said the technology has the capacity to expose animals to mobs of people wanting to chat or to even weaponize them.
Researchers and animal-rights groups have pointed to previous playback experiments to show the distress an animal can suffer when confronted with an imitation call from a machine.
In 2007, zoologist Katy Payne admitted she caused an elephant great distress when playing a recording of her dead grandfather’s voice.
Despite the concerns, there remains a $10 million reward for a project that can establish communication with an animal without that animal recognizing that it is communicating with humans.
Private equity billionaire Jeremy Coller, who funds the Coller Doolittle Challenge, said during the challenge’s latest prize event in June that humans will likely reach this goal within the decade.
“Because AI is so fast, I have absolute conviction we will crack the code by 2030,” he said.