AI's Influence on Animal Welfare: What to Expect

This table compiles reading suggestions from the AI for Animals community, featuring both fiction and non-fiction books that explore the intersection of AI and animals.

This news article discusses that at the Royston Veterinary Centre, AI tools like Vetscan Imagyst are enhancing veterinary care by providing rapid analysis of samples, leading to faster diagnoses and treatment options for pets. While AI's integration into veterinary practices improves efficiency, it emphasizes the importance of human oversight in ensuring optimal animal health care.

This short, 4 minute, video provides a brief overview of what AI is and how it is affecting animals.

This monthly newsletter from AIA tracks developments and provides resources at the intersection of AI and animals. Each issue includes an overview of a specific AI and animal-related topic, updates, opportunities, recent news, research publications, and resources.

This article from Forbes outlines how AI tools like LAIKA are being employed to alleviate veterinarian burnout by automating routine tasks, thereby allowing veterinarians to focus on more complex aspects of care. The implementation of these tools raises important ethical considerations regarding the role of AI in veterinary practice.

Promoting the development of AI to create a better future for all animals.

This article offers an overview of how AI can both positively and negatively impact animals, with a primary focus on farmed animals.

This article provides an overview of how AI can both positively and negatively affect animals. It serves as an ideal starting point for those new to the intersection of AI and animal welfare.

This post urges animal advocates to proactively engage with AI developments to shape how technology will impact farmed animals. It emphasizes guiding AI applications in animal-related fields to prevent further exploitation and harness AI as a tool for advocacy, such as decoding animal communication, improving alternative proteins, and addressing speciesist biases in AI models.

This presentation at the International Animal Rights Conference features Sam Tucker discussing how AI can be leveraged to improve animal rights, including limiting harmful uses of AI in factory farming and promoting AI models that benefit animals.

The organisation aims to facilitate Interspecies Communication by leveraging AI technology.

The Cat Royale project explores the potential of AI-powered robotic systems in interacting with and learning from cats. By analyzing feline responses to various activities, the AI adapts its interactions to promote engagement. However, human involvement remains essential for monitoring the cats' welfare and addressing any issues, illustrating the collaborative role of AI in companion animal care.

AI for Animals Blog covers important trends in AI that could impact animal welfare directly and indirectly

Builds free custom AI tools to help increase Animal Welfare

An overview of how AI can affect animal advocacy both directly and indirectly

Global company based in US with a department for Animal Health Intelligence that has multiple products that incorporate AI for monitoring systems in livestock farming, aquaculture, and pets.

This article provides an ethical evaluation of the involvement of animals in AI research. It highlights how animal testing continues to play a role in AI development, particularly in neurobiological experiments, while also examining how AI can have both positive and negative impacts on animals.

This report summarizes findings from a survey of 194 participants from 142 animal advocacy organizations regarding AI usage. While 72.2% of respondents had positive attitudes toward AI and 50.5% used it for content creation, key challenges like limited technical expertise and concerns over AI accuracy hinder wider adoption. The report recommends offering technical training and funding assistance to integrate AI more effectively into the sector.

This paper offers a systematic account of how AI technologies could harm nonhuman animals and explains why animal harms, often neglected in AI ethics, should be better recognized.

Brandon Keim discusses how AI is contributing to the understanding of animal consciousness and ethical considerations in animal rights.

This study found that only 2 out of 68 public AI statements and none out of 71 computer/AI ethics courses contained a meaningful reference to animals.

This article highlights applications through which AI systems are or can be used to benefit nonhuman animals, and shows how these benefits can be classified using the harm framework proposed by Coghlan and Parker (Philosophy & Technology 36:25, 2023, Section 2)

This report by Open Paws explores how AI is being integrated into animal advocacy efforts, including applications in research, campaigning, and resource allocation.

This article emphasizes the need for legal frameworks to protect animals from the potential harms of AI. It discusses the implications of AI in various sectors, such as veterinary care and wildlife trade, advocating for the integration of ethical considerations in Australia's renewed Animal Welfare Strategy.

This article highlights concerns raised by the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) regarding the potential use of AI to influence consumer food purchases. AIMS warns that AI could perpetuate biases in promoting certain narratives, such as advocating for plant-based alternatives over traditional meat products.

AI can be used to resolve the Enforcement Problem, rather than necessarily arguing to introduce AI in new contexts

This paper explores the impact of AI and robotics on human-animal relations, particularly in contexts like agriculture and zoos. The study offers a descriptive analysis of how these technologies disrupt traditional interactions and a normative perspective on the moral implications of replacing biological animals with AI-driven entities. The authors call for a non-anthropocentric approach to these changes, emphasizing their ethical significance.

This article discusses the development of semi-autonomous and autonomous machines designed to interact safely and ethically with animals in various environments. The concept of "animal-friendly machines" involves creating prototypes that incorporate ethical decision trees to minimize harm to animals. The paper highlights completed projects and proposes future developments in machine ethics, focusing on enhancing animal welfare through improved design and decision-making processes.