interspecies

We are building devices that translates Animal to Human. Our first device is a dog collar that allows dogs to speak English.

Neel Manglani
TU Delft
Computer Science

Over het initiatief / About the initiative

interspecies

In welke fase zit jouw initiatief? / In what stage is your initiative?

Uitgewerkt conceptfase

Heb je jouw initiatief al gevalideerd? / Did you validate your initiative?

not yet

Meer informatie over jouw initiatief / More info about your initiative

Humankind has been in pursuit to conquer nature for millennia.

Now, while we Homo Sapiens drastically improve our quality of life [1], the surrounding Animals on earth suffer greatly [2].

From Animals close to our hearts like Dogs, to animals we don’t see on a daily basis, like the genius, yet abused Dolphin [3], we would like to enable them to tell their stories, their words. We would like them to express themselves naturally, in a way Homo Sapiens cannot deny.

Personally, I can sit here and tell you a million and one ways how our first device, Canine One, could be a smash hit in the pet industry, but I won’t. Our products, once brought into this gigantic and growing market [4] [6] (there are literally more households with pets than children!), will introduce a completely new class of product, never seen before.

Our vision is greater than this. We would eventually like all species on Earth to live together symbiotically. We would like to unlock these Animals’ super-powers, by increasing our communication with them by an order of magnitude. For example, Dolphins that can help us with search and rescue, or communicate with other Animals, that can sense pending natural disasters [5].

But, this journey starts with Canine One, our first product. This device aims to provide a real-time translation of a dog’s inner world, which we believe is very complex. Anyone with first-hand experience raising dogs can testify to the fact that every dog has a unique, deep, and interesting personality. This is evidence, to us, that there is a large world undiscovered by Homo Sapien.

We rely on our dogs for emotional support and security, and we, the team at interspecies AI, would like to bring this to the next level. We are building a world where your dog not only speaks back to you in English, but also where your dog’s health, happiness and overall well-being is monitored in an easy-to-grasp way.

That’s about it 🙂

[1]  https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions

[2] https://www.britannica.com/science/human-induced-extinction

[3] https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/latest/news/documentary-former-dolphin-trainer-reveals-hidden-cruelty-behind-industry/

[4] https://www.bloomberg.com/company/press/global-pet-industry-to-grow-to-500-billion-by-2030-bloomberg-intelligence-finds/

[5] https://www.icarus.mpg.de/28810/animals-warning-sensors#:~:text=Moreover%2C%20there%20are%20many%20reports,advance%20of%20a%20major%20earthquake.

[6] https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/economists-outlook/a-stunning-stat-there-are-more-american-households-with-pets-than-children

Wat is er anders/nieuw aan jouw idee/oplossing t.o.v. bestaande oplossingen? / What is different/new about your idea/solution compared to existing solutions??

We love AI. We deeply understand the nature of this new “trend”.

Our care for Animals, our logistical situation, our experience with AI, combined with pre-seed capital, put us in a position that enables us to work on this class of device for a good while.

There has been lots of new science, with respect to Animal Communication. See more here: https://www.earthspecies.org/what-we-do/publications

We are young, we are hungry, and we are foolish enough to believe we can do it. I am not sure if we need anything else 🙂

 

Wat zijn jouw volgende stappen om het verder te ontwikkelen? / What are your next steps to develop the initiative?

We will be moving our operations to the Caribbean, where we will have access to our first cohort of dogs.  Our team knows what to get done for a good while. We are currently in the prototyping phase, where we are currently designing the first version. After which, we will test these devices.

To be honest, our main strategy is simply, leave society for 6 months, heads down, and build, for at least 6 months.

After this, we will reevaluate our mission and adjust accordingly.

Wat heb je nodig om (nog meer) impact te maken met dit initiatief? / What do you need to make (more) impact with this initiative?

Our current bottleneck would be funding. Although we have enough to create a proof of concept, more funding will directly go into:

a) manufacturing of more prototypes, and a new founding engineer (or two)

b) a new canine facility to house 10x more dogs, which in turn brings us way more data for our ml models.

 

Currently, we are eyeing a bankrupt animal shelter that we would love to acquire. This would provide everything needed for point b.